Nurse the Hate: Hate Milton Bradley

I’m starting to think Milton Bradley might have a problem with his temper. It’s not everyday you see a player restrained by his manager to avoid the possible beating death of an ump, and it resulting in the guy tearing his ACL. When’s the last time a manager tore his best hitter’s ACL in the final days of a pennant race? I don’t think even Billy Martin pulled that shit.
No one is saying what was said between the first base ump and Bradley, but Bradley was his usual self in his comments afterwards. “It's terrible. And now, because of him, my knee's hurt,” Bradley said Sunday. “If this costs me my season because of that, he needs to be reprimanded. I'm taking some action. I'm not going to stand pat and accept this, because I didn't do nothing wrong.”

The Padres first base coach backed Bradley up in saying that the conversation between the two seemed to bait Bradley, but Milt’s gotta stay in his shoes. It’s also hard to be totally convinced by Bradley’s side of the story with his track record. You might remember him best as the guy that has fought with every team and manager he’s ever had. He called Jeff Kent a racist. That was about six months after calling Eric Wedge a racist. I think the Expos were a racist organization too. He pitched an entire bag of balls in a meltdown in LA in 2004. Shortly afterwards he fired a bottle into the stands there for a four game suspension. I also recall an incident here where he spent a couple hours barfing all over Diana’a 24 Hour Restaurant’s men’s room in Lakewood. (The Indians swept that one under the rug. I‘ll bet Mark Shapiro didn‘t mop up the puke though…) About 6 months later he got pulled over for speeding, and then just drove away while the cop was writing his ticket. That was good for three days in jail. There was that domestic violence charge that popped up, and went away after he calmed the waters at home.

“I'm not going to stand pat and accept this, because I didn't do nothing wrong.” Well, you did completely lose your mind and attack someone blind with rage. And wasn’t it you that had to be taken down by your own manager because you couldn’t control yourself? I don’t think Milton says, “You know what, you’re right. I was totally wrong, and I am 100% responsible for my actions. My mistake!”

Yes, Milton is a really good (not great) baseball player that just can’t seem to stop himself from wanting to cut the eyes out of people‘s skulls and set their screaming bodies on fire when he gets a little pissed . It’s one thing if you’re hitting .320 with 40 bombs and go into rages. Then you are “fiery”. When you hit .285 with 18 Hrs and miss 80 games a year with various ailments? That makes you a psychopath with too much risk for the potential reward. There’s a reason why he’s played for five teams in seven years. I foresee a talented guy that leaves the game too early. He’s making $4,000,000 this year. I don’t think he’s going to be able to make $4,000,000 a year selling office machines. At least not with that temper.

However, if he calls you wanting to sell you a fax machine, better take that call. Imagine the guy in the picture above tossing a Minolta copier through your front window screaming “You want a motherfucking copier now bitch? Huh? Here‘s your fucking copier you piss drinking fuck wad!” Then imagine his local sales manager having a conversation like this…

“Milton? Could you come here a minute? Yeah….Ummm….Did you go over to Galvatech today? Yeah…Ummm….The reason I ask is that Jim from Galvatech called and said you threw a Minolta 550LS though their front window? Yeah….Oh, it’s not your fault….OK…Ok…Well, it’s not me, but we have to call Judy from HR in to get this incident into your file and….Whoa…Whoa! Take it easy Milton! Put the coffee maker down!"

It’s probably best for Milton (and the rest of us) if he can squeak out a few more high grossing years from baseball and stay out of the general population. But just to be safe, if you see a gimpy pissed off looking black guy coming your way trying to sell you a copier, order it now and cancel the order later via voicemail. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.