The Curious Case of Milton Bradley

So as anyone who watches a whole lot of SportsCenter like I do knows, Milton Bradley has been in the news recently. He has come out talking about last season, which he spent in Chicago as a Cub, and discussed some reasons why he was not as a consistent of a performer as many, myself included, thought he should have been. The basis of what Bradley has said is that he felt that he dealt with an “extreme” amount of racism and hate mail during his stay in Chicago. Bradley says that other African-American Cubs in the past such as LaTroy Hawkins dealt with similar issues. He says in his recent interview on SportsCenter that he couldn’t go out, and was pretty much forced to stay in, like a “prisoner in my own home”. He went on to explain that when he went with a friend who had come to town, he was inundated with insults about his play and was told to “go back to the ghetto” and that he “didn’t deserve anything”. He said that he feared violence against him when he was playing at home, citing numerous occasions when he had bottles thrown at him. In the aftermath, the Cubs GM Jim Hendry stated that it was simply Bradley’s ineffectiveness at the plate that led to such negative feelings from Chicago. I did enjoy the snarkyness with which Bradley responded, by saying that he “had nothing bad to say” about Hendry, because “[Hendry] paid me 30 million dollars”.

It’s difficult to say whether or not Bradley is justified in his comments. For starters, he did have a very poor year last year at the plate. Bradley was paid to come in and hit, and he did not do that. Could it be that Bradley is trying to make excuses after the fact for his subpar performance last year? Or is he speaking some form of the truth, and the bad year came as a result of being unable to truly be himself in Chicago? Of course, it’s difficult to say, and having never been an African-American baseball player in Chicago, I have no desire nor ability to comment on that aspect of what Bradley said. What I can say is that Bradley has been a hitter his whole career, and only after going to Chicago did his numbers drop so low. There seems to be some coloration, but that does not infer causation. It could be that he changed leagues and had to play in the NL Central, facing some quality pitchers throughout the year. The AL West hasn’t typically been a hotbed for great starting pitching during Bradley’s time there, so it could be that he was not ready to face the likes of Carpenter, Wainwright and the rest of the NL Central on a consistent basis.

The case of Milton Bradley is a perplexing one, but I for one will not be surprised in the least if Bradley tears it up for the Mariners this year. I feel like he will be in what Bill Simmons calls “eff you mode” the whole year, trying to show all of Chicago his ability to play ball and pretty tell them all to go fuck themselves. Also, he will be back in the AL West, the division in which he hit well enough to earn that 30 million dollar contract with the Cubs. I’m excited to see what Bradley has in store, because if nothing else, I’m sure it’ll be fun to watch.

-THE-A-TRAIN-