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Bryce Harper may have to spend the next several years enduring an annoyance, and trying to learn to exploit an opportunity, that has been experienced by perhaps just three other ballplayers: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds.

Their common experience? Being walked at a rate of about once a game, for year after year. Ruth, Williams and Bonds all overcame the Walk Strategy to become, perhaps, the three most feared hitters ever. Their greatest seasons often came when they were walking the most. They solved maybe the hardest problem a batter can face: a league-wide decision to "not give him anything to hit."

Can Harper solve that conundrum, too?

On Monday night, Harper arrived at his locker after going hitless against the Mets, swinging impatiently at pitches early in the count and making four soft outs on pop flies and dribblers.

"I felt great up there," said Harper, who is usually candid about his hitting. "You have to understand you may only get one or two [good] pitches a game. If you don't hit them, it's your fault."

Perhaps Harper senses he is about to get hot again. But that's certainly not where he has been. In late April, Harper fell into a normal hitting slump that happened to coincide with the moment when much of MLB, agog at his early-season performance, decided to try to Bryce-Proof the game.

Who can blame them? In the Nats' first 18 games, a ninth of a season, Harper was on pace for 82 homers and 208 RBIs, but just 90 walks. The light bulb went off: Why are we pitching to this monster?

The Phillies started the trend. Then 10 days later, Cubs Manager Joe Maddon took it to the extreme, bragging that his pitchers might walk Harper every time up; then they did walk him 13 times in four games, including six in one game.

"I feel like I can walk 200 times this year, if I wanted to," Harper said this week.

But does he want to?

Those few stars who were paid the ultimate compliment of constant walks all figured out that, with the right attitude, they could turn what seemed like a pox into an advantage. Years ago, before he went into a shell because of PED troubles, Bonds explained why frightened pitchers were his friend.

Hurlers constantly fell behind in counts hoping he would fish for bad balls. That gave him many chances within the same game to anticipate pitches or locations. Or sometimes both, such as "low fastball." He studied tendencies. Then he waited. If he got what he was anticipating, he usually clobbered it. When he got to two strikes, he battled. But until then, he was just picking low-hanging fruit.

For 10 years, including his 73-homer season, Dusty Baker was Bonds's manager.

"Barry mastered taking concentration to the next level. I never saw him get frustrated," Baker said this week. "I've even seen him take off his elbow guard in the middle of the pitch to go to first base. "But Barry was [37 in 2001]. He'd learned to deal with it. How would he have dealt with it at 23?"

Williams was so analytical that he made a grid of the strike zone and estimated what he thought he could hit on pitches in every inch of it. His response to the plot to frustrate him was to turn the tables and frustrate them.

From age 25 to 31, Ruth drew between 142 and 170 walks in every full season he played, the period when he revolutionized the sport. The Babe beat the base on balls in his simple, intuitive way. "Get a good pitch and sock it," he'd say. Everyone heard "sock." Many overlooked the extreme patience in "get a good pitch."

In the annals of easy-to-say, hard-to-do, this mantra may take the prize. Especially when the desire to be great, to live out what seems like your fate, and to help your team win, has driven your whole life.

So, start the long trek toward relentless focus wed to infinite patience. Even for the best, never easy.