Bradley just doesn’t get it, does he?

...........but Dave Kingman was widely known to be a massive jerk.

He was the golden child of baseball in 1998, but after the corked bat incident he took a lot of crap from fans all around baseball. I remember a trip to Baltimore where some guy ran out onto the field and rolled pieces of cork at Sammy’s feet.

Personally, I think the rise and fall of Sammy is one of the saddest stories in Cubs history. I think most baseball fans (outside of the Southside and St. Louis) loved him in ‘98, ‘99… but the moment that bat shattered and Toby Hall noticed the cork, he was villified. The Cubs run to playoffs that season squelched a little bit of it, but by ‘04 the cork thing and steroid allegations turned baseball’s loveable teddy bear into a poster child for the selfish, me-first steroid era. I know how most Cub fans felt about him after ‘04, but I think that distrust and dislike of Sammy came for other fans a year and a half earlier. Had he continued to perform at a high level in Baltimore and Texas, I think the “I hate Sammy” club would have grown, but sadly he became the most forgettable member of the 600 homer club in an instant.

then Milton can’t use his name as an excuse.

but Jim Edmounds is not loved by very many people outside of ST Louise. And we were too excited to have him a Cub

“I’m tired of people bringing me down,” Bradley said. “It wears on you. I love you guys, all you guys. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong. All I want to do is play baseball and make a better life for my kid than I had.”

I seem to remember a verse from the Old Book about a person who rules his temper and is slow to anger being stronger than someone who can take a city in warfare .. something like that .. Guess Milton’s not there yet.

The man needs to grow up and face the music. He’s a pro sport player and he’s going to be in the crosshairs all his life. The sooner he learns how to deal with being in a fish bowl and quit worrying about what others say about him, the better he’ll be .. If he hasn’t learned this now, he never will.

And that’s too bad, because I think fundamentally he seems like an OK guy who can play pretty good ball when he’s focused on the gifts he has.

...is that he’s actually considered to be a nice, intelligent man who just cannot control his temper. Rather, we’re not talking about a player that is loathed by his teammates or is rude and surly all the time. So far, he’s lucky that his inability to control his emotions has not completely undermined his career although it has, so far, led to suspensions, an arrest, and a major knee injury.

I hope that he can learn to keep his temper in check and that we’ll never had to read of an incident like this again. However, I’m not optimistic as this pattern of behavior has repeated itself so many times, despite counseling and Bradley’s own stated desire to gain a better sense of self-control. Clearly, his inability to control his temper is much bigger problem than a simple case of immaturity.

Personally, rather than booing him or dismissing him as “another spoiled a-hole”, I have to just shake my head sadly as Bradley is not a jerk but a man with a deeply rooted psychological problem. Rather, I don’t hate Milton Bradley, I feel sorry for him and I root for him to learn to cope with his demons.

...I don’t think my disdain for any former Cub rises to the level of “hate”, which I reserve for folks like Hitler, or Pol Pot, or bin Laden. Rather, I’ve never thought the world would be a better place if any particular baseball player were dead.

That being said, the Cub career of Candy Maldonado was pretty frustrating. I was elated and amazed when they actually convinced another team to give us a player in exchange for him and even more amazed when that player, Glenallen Hill, hit like Babe Ruth for the last month of the ‘93 season..