As in hurting himself before the fight starts.

DHL.

Now there are those that want him gone.

frail body? yes – and I stated that as a risk. a big one. however, i don’t think he has a bad attitude so much as a fighting spirit, and as someone who has watched a bunch of nice guy/pretty boys represent this club and do nothing, i want a fighter – we need some fight, b/c we looked like a bunch of school children in the last two playoffs, and i’ll tell you one thing, neither the d-backs, nor the dodgers were scared of us.

The story I heard was that Big Z was in the locker room changing shirts and someone yelled that there was a fight on the field. So Carlos ran right out and the rest is history.

Peavy and Soriano. SOriano for walking 3/4 of the way to first base the day before.. (It was a shot) and then Peavy saying if he were on the mound he would have drilled his ass. .. Interesting.

always have been quick to judge – no doubt. they’ve got their minds made up about players before they even suit up – the fans’ inability to give players the benefit-of-the-doubt hasn’t helped their chances at success.

yes, we’ve had a good run here in five years in the Regular Season. but even if we put up 120 in the win column it doesn’t get the 500 lb. gorilla off our backs. let’s win a playoff series, and then i’ll concede to your point.

>>> SHIVERS <<<

but, as someone who normally detests what rick morrissey thinks, let’s just say i’m shocked that I find myself agreeing with him :-).

Adam Dumb

and, yes, i’m so glad we don’t have him. would be a great DH.

But if your team has obviously crumbled and choked under pressure the last two years, would you agree bringing in a tougher guy would hopefully change the dynamics of the clubhouse a little bit?

I agree that talent is talent, but we’ve had enough talent to win these last two years; the mental toughness or attitude of this team has to have something to do with getting swept twice.

Bradley will bring a lot of baggage to the Cubs, which will be detrimental to the team.

In fact, he is bringing a list of baggage to the team.

Yes, I am a realist

After the game, Lilly said to reporters, “There were no punches thrown, so I don’t think John had a bloody nose. I don’t know how that would have happened.”

He sure is a badass

Is the guy I want on my side in a fight. So meek looking but do not cross him as Molina learned the hard way.

Ted Lilly drive slowly by the visiting players parking lot in a caddy… watching… idle idle idle…

He’s obviously saying it’ll improve our locker-room psychology, that adding a spirited player with some fight in him might prevent the team from just lying down and dying again like they did against the Dodgers.

Not saying I agree with the approach, I’m just surprised you don’t see where he’s coming from.

and is an oversimplification of my argument.

some folks think bradley is a hot-head (bob brenly will fall into that category for sure). others, like myself, think he has an incredible passion for the game — certainly that is what his team mates who have liked him so much feel. similarly, some folks think that pinella is a hot-head. others think he has a passion for the game, and they liked the fighting spirit that he brought to the cubs, replacing the mellow-mooded baker.

what i am saying is that the cubs have a perceived weakness as lovable losers and that because of this perception, and the fact that they tend to have a team that is comprised primarily of “nice-guys” that support this perception, the cubs don’t bring a whole lot of intimidation to the playoffs. this perception matters, whether it is true or not.

a fist fight is not going to win a post-season game, but having someone in the clubhouse who is fired up and gets other players fired up and someone who clearly has a passion for the game is a good thing. especially if that person can perform. we will see if bradley can perform, because that is the ultimate value he can bring as a high obp sh bat.

Get Farnsworth back here now.

….the Cubs have needed Lou Piniella to call them out, very publicly, for their lackadaisical play and mental weakness. And they’ve responded, both times.

I don’t think that a fistfight makes a team play better. It might make the guys like each other more, or to sharpen their focus, which I guess could have some ancillary effect in the short term, but it doesn’t cause a team to play winning baseball in and of itself.

But adding a “driven” player who will not tolerate “taking plays/games off” often does. Take Kevin Garnett with the Celtics. He is loved by his teammates, even though he pushes them very hard. I don’t know if Milton Bradley is that guy, but I know that the Cubs were very much in need of such a player during long stretches of 2007-2008.

if he effects the overall chemistry of this new team in a positive way and that overall chemistry helps the team win a championship, who cares?!? i sure as hell don’t. i just want to win.

Milton Bradley begins serving his first 10-day suspension on:

I seem to remember that working and being considered a good thing

to pull for us.

We should be putting our collective Cubs’ heads to better use, like solving the crisis in the Middle East, or inventing a low-calorie, waist-shrinking beer.

Wait, maybe we should be doing that…

for wasting your valuable post space, dude. next time i’ll check with you first, ok?

fwiw…..apparently there are a lot of other folks who don’t share your view.

Where’s DHL when you need him?

We could use some swagger to this blog to defend ourselves from Mr. Bishop’s attacks

Welcome to the Cub community, Mr Bishop. You should introduce yourself to BluMike.

The 08 Bradley would be worth $25 million a year, and we are only paying $10.

we beat ourselves!

Aaaaaamen.

And Steve Stone remains the ONLY person I’ve ever heard use the verb “racky-tacked.”

If he does that, we’ll all be very happy and I’ll be happy to say I was wrong about him.

He’s actually commonly regarded as an average to above-average outfielder, when healthy. He didn’t play much outfield last season because he was still recovering from knee surgery. Plus, errors aren’t a good way to judge a defender – especially when you’ve already established that you’re using a small sample to base that judgement on.

Last, if you’re going to use career batting average to compare the two (which really isn’t a good idea, but anyway), you should probably note that Mark DeRosa is .279 career hitter (in 2,650 ABs) vs. Bradley’s .280 career BA (in 2,867 ABs). Now a better idea would be to look at OPS+, and there you’ll find DeRo with a 97 career OPS+ and Bradley with a 118 career OPS+.

Don’t get me wrong – I have a ton of respect for DeRo and will miss him greatly. But Bradley is younger and capable of putting up much better offensive numbers.