The delay has shrunk. It’s down to three hours now. That’s not too bad, since the first time, it was six-and-a-half hours. So, progress. Pretty soon, Arsalan Kazemi will be able to fly into Houston and proceed directly to baggage claim, rather than being detained. Security officials will no longer try to determine whether he has come to pick up enriched uranium or plans for secret entrances into the Pentagon.

Logic, and 100-plus years of baseball history, would suggest that there must be a level of professional baseball at which Bryce Harper meets failure, where he finally encounters pitching he cannot simply overpower, where the 18-year-old prodigy is made to look his age.