The More Things Change...

I always think it is a little funny when people do the same thing over and over expecting a different result and then seem completely shocked when they get the same one. Thanks to the Seattle Mariners and the Cincinnati Bengals for both being from cities that I kind of have to think twice about when spelling, and also for proving the axiom correct that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Seattle Mariners traded for Milton Bradley in the 2010 offseason thinking he had put his anger-management, authority-rebelling, and home fan-attacking ways behind him. And why wouldn't they? It's not like he had a history or anything. But as I wrote last month, it took Bradley just 5 games to have a blowup, and it took just 22 more for him to be shut-down indefinitely with "emotion stress," which is a euphemism for being a "chronic lunatic."

Can a man change? Sure! Should the Mariners (and all the rest) be ripped for trying to salvage the poor bastard's career (and life)? Yes and no. Perhaps it is a noble thing to try and help the guy straighten himself out and realize his potential. Perhaps it is pure ego that each of these organizations thinks they have all the answers and can make him a champion. Perhaps he'd be better off cashing his checks and getting out of the pressure cooker of professional sports that he clearly does not have the temperament to deal with.

So who is this guy? What exactly is his history? Is he worth all this trouble? Career averages of .276, 20 homers and 76 RBI per 162 games would say no. Especially since he's only played more than 101 games three times in 11 seasons, so you know you aren't getting a full season out of him. The other 8 seasons, he averaged 71 games played (which breaks down to 9 homers, 33 RBI). As for his history, it all started in Montreal.

He was drafted by the Expos in 1996 and made the roster as a light-hitting centerfielder in 2000. He apparently had no blowups with the Expos, but was traded mid-season in 2001 to the Indians, and maybe it's their fault he cracked.

He finished 2001 as a backup and played in 98 games in 2002 with Cleveland. His career batting average was .234 and he'd hit just 12 homers over 3 seasons. So we're not talking about world-class talent that is worth the headaches (Gary Sheffield, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, etc.). He blossomed (sorta) in 2003, batting .321, but still only hitting 10 homers and 43 RBI as the Indians' primary centerfielder (101 games played). That small success seems to be the butterfly wings that caused the hurricane to come.

During Spring Training the next year, Bradley got into a fight with manager Eric Wedge and was promptly traded to the Dodgers just days before the 2004 season. Hello spotlight! Goodbye sanity. As a fulltime starter in LA, Bradley's numbers stayed near his career averages, but playing in more games, he did hit 19 homers and drive in 67 runs. His batting average dipped back to .267 though and he was plagued with character issues.

One night in June of 2004, he stepped into the batter's box, exchanged words with the home plate umpire and was promptly ejected before even seeing a pitch. He then calmly set his batting gloves and bat in the box, stormed to the dugout and threw a bag of balls onto the field, scattering some 70 balls around the infield and a few in the left field corner (he picked a few up and hucked them down there).

With just 5 games left in 2004, in the midst of a pennant race, Bradley dropped a liner with the bases loaded and allowed 2 runs to score. And the bomb was planted. A few pitches later, some jackass Dodger fan (I know, I need to be more specific) threw a plastic bottle onto the field in Bradley's general vicinity. And the fuse was lit. Bradley picked up the bottle, raged towards the stands and BOOM! He threw the bottle into the stands, challenging fans to fight him (apparently). He was restrained by teammates before going into the stands and was, of course, ejected. As he headed back to the dugout, he tore off his jersey and hat, eliciting boos from his own home crowd...which he further incited with a palms up, "bring it on" gesture before he was yanked into the dugout and off the roster for the rest of the year.

Believe it or not, the Dodgers didn't dump him after this and Bradley survived one more year in Dodger blue, but played only 75 games and driving in only 38 runs in 2005 (maybe because the Paul LoDuca steroid pipeline dried up when LoDuca was traded away late in 2004). He was traded to the A's after the 2005 season (bringing Andre Ethier to the Dodgers...nice call, Moneyball).

Bradley spent most of two seasons as a part-timer in Oakland, not driving in many runs, or scoring many runs, or hitting or stealing much. But he did benefit from one of those poorly conceived, massive contracts that the Dodgers were always handing out, so that was cool.  After his suspension in 2004, Bradley reportedly went to anger management and seemed to genuinely want to turn his life around. He spent most of the next three years in relative anonymity, staying out of the spotlight and keeping his rage nestled all safe and warm inside.

In June of 2007, the A's gave up on Bradley because his price tag was still too high for his output (thanks Dodgers). They traded him to San Diego, where after a brief stint on the disabled list, he became a full-time starter in left field and went on to become one of the Padres' best hitters, carrying them to a division lead with just under a week to go. [queue the Jaws theme]

Stop me if you've heard this one, but with only a few games left in the season in a pennant race, Bradley apparently tossed his bat in frustration after a strikeout. It went in the general direction of first base umpire Ron Winters, who apparently took offense and he told the home plate umpire that it had happened. In his next at bat, the home plate ump told Bradley that Winters had taken exception to the bat-toss. Bradley hit a single, of course, and while standing on first base he confronted Winters, who replied with some foul language and had three years of crazy blow up all over him.

Bradley was restrained by his manager, and somehow twisted his knee in the fracas, tearing his ACL and ending his season, the Padres' pennant hopes, and Bradley's tenure in America's Finest City. But at least this rousing pennant win by the Rockies ended up being a great story and a really fun postseason for the rest of us.

"But we fixed Josh Hamilton's life. Why not Milton Bradley's too?" thought the front office of the Texas Rangers. Bradley was brought to Texas in 2008 (after knee surgery) to resurrect his career and get his life back together. And it worked. And then it didn't work anymore.

Bradley had by far his best season with the bat in 2008. Relieved of his outfielding duties, perhaps to help him focus and not be distracted, he batted .321 as the Rangers' designated hitter. He had a .443 on base percentage and led the American League in OPS. He was chosen as an All-Star and ended up starting due to injury to David Ortiz ('roids are brutal on the body).

Besides his obnoxious, gratuitous spotlight grabbing during Hamilton's spectacular Home Run Derby performance, it seemed Bradley had finally put it all behind him, grown up, and had gotten his life together. Then one fateful day, he was watching his team's game broadcast in the clubhouse during the game and heard the Royals' play-by-play announcer talking about Bradley's parade of off-the-field issues (ironically, it would turn out, because he soon became the Grand Marshall of Bradley's 2008 parade of off-the-field issues).

Bradley stormed out of the clubhouse through the stadium trying to find the announcer and confront him. He had to be chased down by the GM and manager (during a game!) and later said that he was upset that someone he didn't know was talking negatively about him (let that be a lesson to you sports announcers, sports anchors and fans).  Apparently it didn't matter that the negative things the announcer was saying were true.  Thus, the Rangers bid him farewell at the end of the season.

The thing is, at this point in the story, Bradley is a somewhat sympathetic character. For the most part, he had been on the right path for a few years. He was officially exonerated of any wrong-doing in the scuffle in San Diego (no suspension because he was apparently incited to act out by the ump, who was suspended). He was just defending his honor in Kansas City (though perhaps there are better ways to do so) and he was playing the best baseball of his career.

So the Cubs took a chance on him. And why not? Sure, his hitting only became decent when he was moved to DH and the Cubs don't play in a league with a DH. Sure he has a history of confrontations with umpires, managers and other authority figures, and the Cubs have a surly, firey manager. No bad can come of that pairing. Sure he has a history of bad blood with his own fans (let alone the other teams'), are Cubs fans are particularly devoted, obsessive and vengeful (see: Bartman, Steve).

Almost as if he had given up trying to be a good guy after being run out of Texas, and perhaps because this was the worst fit in the history of personnel moves, Bradley made sparks fly throughout his tenure in Chicago. Finally, after a number of flare-ups with manager Lou Pinella, who had sent him home during a game and benched him numerous times, Bradley was suspended for the season (again, late in the season, during a pennant race). This time he had spoken out at a post-game interview at Wrigley field about how the Cubs organization was run poorly, that it was no surprise they hadn't won a World Series in 100+ years, and that the Cubs fans were garbage.

Apparently the Cubs and their fans didn't like this tirade, so they dumped him off on the Mariners last winter and here we are again. The Mariners must have thought that they had the right balance of team leadership and management structure to keep him in line. They don't. In his fifth game in Seattle, he either flipped off heckling Rangers fans or was just showing them how many hits he had on the season at that point.

Then yesterday, 17 games later, mired in a season-long slump, Bradley struck out looking and was screaming at the umpire from the bench. Manager Don Wakamatsu told him to be quiet and made the decision to sit him down for the rest of the night. It was reported that Bradley then told Wakamatsu, "I'm outta here" and left, through Bradley denies this. Another story says that he stormed down the tunnel to the clubhouse and Wakamatsu followed him (during the game...familiar?) and told him not to quit on his teammates.

So Bradley returned to the bench to see that he had been replaced in left field so he again stormed out. Apparently he thought they were going to play with no left fielder until he got back. This morning he told management that the emotional stress was too much for him and asked out of the line-up.

I commend him for asking for help, but seriously dude. You are getting paid $30 million to play a game that you don't even have to play well; they have to pay you even if they don't play you. Which they are now doing.

Will he return to the M's? I hope not. Seattle fans deserve better after the 5 years they've had. Will he wind up somewhere else? Probably. Doesn't everyone need an emotionally fragile, light-hitting power hitter with anger issues? He's only 31 or I'd say Omar Minaya would be all over that trade. Give him 5 more years, and then he's Mets material.

Headline Potpourri

It's been a while since I have written here consistently and I make no promise that I will start to again now, but I do like spouting off about things and pretending that people are reading it and I am influencing the masses (even though I can look at the Google analytics and see that usually only 4 people read anything on here...which just tells me that my mom must log in from different computers).

So here's my scattershot look at the sports world these days.

Omar Minaya needs to be fired. I am pretty sure that his main qualification when he was hired was being a life-long Mets fan. Well, I want the job then. I can identify the highest profile star free agent and sign a huge check to bring him in. I can misidentify the abundant mid-level talent that actually wins ball games. I can sign over-the-hill stars in a transparent attempt to sell tickets. I can trade away young talent without having any real sense of if they'll be any good or not. I can sign and resign bad pitchers to hugely overvalued contracts, while passing on others that would have been cheaper and more effective.

According to a blog on the MLB.com network, Joel Pineiro was all set to sign with the Mets this offseason.  He is close friends with Alex Cora, who told him that Minaya had said they were gonna get it done.  Pieneiro was excited.  Then Minaya settled on the same crap that had lost nearly 100 games last year and Pineiro eventually signed with the Angels for just $1 million more than the Mets initial low-ball offer.  If you're wondering, last year Pineiro had his best year as a full-time starter with a 3.49 ERA and 15 wins.  His ERA is 2.77 this year, including dominating the Yankees in New York yesterday.  Good call Omar. 

Jerry Manuel also needs to be fired. He over-manages the bullpen to the point where most games are unwatchable because of the constant pitching changes. And this makes all of the pitchers tired because they all warm-up every day and most pitch every day, so mid-way through the season, all of them are fatigued. He over-manages the lineup to the point where no one knows exactly what his role is. If Jose Reyes is your 3-man, put him there and shut up about it. If not, don't...and shut up about it. If Angel Pagan is your centerfielder until Carlos Beltran comes back, then put him out there and let him settle in. If you are trying to find extra time for Gary Matthews, Jr. so you can trade him when Beltran returns, then do it and leave him in there so he can settle in. Set a lineup and stick with it. One bad offensive day doesn't mean you blow the whole thing up and start over. But two years of the same crap not working over and over, does mean to start over.

And Gary Matthews, Jr., you are 36 years old. Drop the "Jr."

Oliver Perez needs to be released. Damn the contract. There must be any number of pitchers available (Pedro Martinez, Jerrod Washburn, any minor leaguer) who can come in and throw a great 4 innings here and there, and then give up 5 runs and 6 walks in an inning here and there. Screw this guy. He stunk when we signed him. He stunk under the last pitching coach. He stinks under this pitching coach. Stop stroking his ego and trying to ease his psyche so he can find the freaking strike zone. Let him use the money you're paying to go to Fiji and hire a sports psychologist and figure it out on his own. There's no reason he needs to parade out there every five days like an albatross around the necks of your fans and the rest of the team just so we can figure out if he's still an overvalued lunatic. (Note: This program does not allow for photo captions, but the one above would have been, "Ctrl-Z".)

John Maine...you're next. Quit screwing around.

Sharks fans: your mascot has one syllable. Luckily the convention of sports fans has standard crowd-roaring cheers for just such a situation. And they have other cheers for two syllable mascots. Stop using the wrong one. "Let's go Sharks! - Let's go Sharks!" Memorize and repeat. You've watched too many Yankees and Red Sox games on ESPN (though that is all they show, so I can't blame you) and are trying to make "Sharks" a two-syllable word. Stop it. "Let's go Sha-arks." I can't believe I have to listen to that for at least 1 more home game, possibly as many as 15 more times this postseason.

Sharks players: What the hell? How many former Stanley Cup winners and Olympic Gold medal winners do you need to join you before you stop being choke artists?

Ben Roethlisberger is an idiot. Can we move on though? He didn't get drunk and crash his $200,000 car into a pedestrian. He didn't run a dog-fighting ring. He didn't shoot himself in the leg in a nightclub. He just keeps sleeping with the wrong women, once he crashed a motorcycle, and he has a really bad barber. If he's ever convicted of rape, then I will change my story here. But for now, he is a really rich, kinda fat, kinda ugly 28-year-old dude who likes going to bars and hooking up with women.

Elin Woods is allegedly pissed at Tiger for playing in the Masters just 5 months after their marriage blew up. Not that Tiger has to work, given his financial success, but golf is his job. I think 5 months off is a reasonable amount of time off from work before restarting some normalcy to life without being callous. In the real world, people go back to work the next day after catastrophe hits. That said, she should be pissed (and allegedly is) about the Nike commercial where they spliced together things his dad said into some kind of eerie, post-mortem, lecture to Tiger about being a scumbag. It is disgusting, shameful and sad. From Nike's point of view, what was the purpose of this: "We will get unrelated statement made by his dead father, who he was really close to, and chop it up so it sounds like he is scolding Tiger. And this will make people want to buy shoes." Are they really exploiting his infidelity as an avenue for sales? It's one thing to keep him as a spokesman since he is still a great athlete, even if he's a scummy person. But it is another to advertise his scumminess.  And he signed off on it.  Oh, and he had sex with all those skanks.  Screw the pre-nup saying you have to be married for a certain amount of time, show him that at least you can't be bought. 

Can we stop looking at Tiger's father as some kind of model for all parents? He raised a son who is arrogant, petulant, rude, condescending, and adulterous. During the US Open this year, which is always on Fathers' Day weekend, I hope I don't have to hear about what a wonderful man it was that raised and was so close to this huge asshole. He may have been a good guy, and maybe all these problems with Tiger are not his fault. But as a former teacher, I often saw that if a kid was a good kid, you saw why when you met his parents. And visa versa.

It took Milton Bradley 5 games to have a blow-up on his new team. And this is after being fired from his last team for having blow-ups all the time. Which is after a litany of blow-ups throughout his career despite his consistent insistence that it's never his fault. Newsflash Milton: opposing sports fan heckle. Especially those in cities where you formerly played. Especially when you had a huge contract and stunk and got run out of town because of behavior problems. So at this point, I am starting to think it isn't Bradley's fault. It's the teams that keep hiring him.

Phil Jackson just criticized NBA referees for the preferential treatment that Kevin Durant gets. I'm sure this blatantly transparent and pathetic whining has nothing to do with the fact that Jackson's Lakers are playing Durant's Supersonics in the playoffs this week. I am sure Jackson would have spoken out about this had the Lakers not been playing the Sonics. And I am sure that Jackson is aware of the fact that his 10 championships are partially a result of the fact that Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kobe Bryant have always gotten better preferential treatment from refs than Tiger Woods would get at the Bunny Ranch. NBA officiating is a joke, Phil. If you score 20+ points per game, or get 15+ rebounds, you get any call you want. It doesn't matter who you are, just that you're somebody.

I know they're not the Supersonics anymore, I just still can't believe it. And Jim Britt deserved better, so that's for him. (By the way Jim, sorry about Milton Bradley being insane. Who saw that coming?)

I went to the Giants-Pirates game yesterday and saw what I think was my first inside-the-park homerun. I have a vague sense that I saw someone hit one at a Padre game at the Murph when I was in college, but I can't quite place it. Eric Young?  I think it was a Rockie.  In any case, this one yesterday was awesome and Aubrey Huff probably hopes he never gets a funny bounce like that again. He looked like the only way he was gonna make it home was on a gurney.

In related news, I rode my bike to the game. This is significant for a number of reasons. One: it's awesome. Two: I was not worried about my bike being stolen or myself being stabbed at any point before during or after the game. Maybe moving away from LA wasn't so bad. I've been to two games at AT&T Park now this season. 0 waves. 0 beach balls. 0 fights. 0 drinks/food thrown at opposing fans. 1 Braves fan in a Chipper Jones jersey in the front row who spent most of the game facing the crowd with a smug look on his face and his arms out in a "That's right, we're winning, what are you gonna do about it?" posture who deserved drinks and food thrown at him, then a fight, but got none. 0 violent incidents outside the stadium.

I have eye glasses but I don't wear them very much, though I should. Last night I was sitting pretty far from the TV watching the Sharks-Avs game and had a hard time spotting the puck. There is obviously an easy way to remedy this situation for the Kings-Canucks game tonight. I need a bigger TV.

Fantasy baseball is frustrating for a lot of reasons but here are two examples from this past week: The Braves got shelled but I couldn't fully enjoy it because I had their pitcher, Jair Jurrjens, on my team. Then the next day, the Mets got shelled even worse by the Rockies. But at least I have one of the Rockies' big hitters on my team so I benefitted there, right? Nope. He had the night off.

Tracy McGrady made the announcement today that he intends to retire if he cannot regain his form. Thanks for the update, Tracy. I think I speak for most fans, and probably most GMs when I say, Tracy McGrady is still in the league?

Milton Bradley Lost It, The Sun Set, And Other News This Week

It has been over a week since I have written anything sports related because this page was not loading properly and I couldn't post to it anyway. To say the least, it has been an eventful week, so today will be just a quick recap of the biggest sports stories of the week in my world:

Everyone is piling onto Mets' manager Willie Randolph because the team stinks. For a long while I thought this was mostly unfounded, but the more they lose the more you realize that something needs to change. I wonder though, why is Omar Minaya's job so safe. After all, he is the person who spent all the money and equipped Randolph's clubhouse with all of these chumps. So Carlos Delgado seems to be hitting again, but the Mets' regular bench consists of Damion Easley, Endy Chavez, Marlon Anderson, Fernando Tatis. Granted, there have been a lot of injuries and the team has had to dig deeper into the bench than Minaya could have expected, but these guys combine for a .209 batting average, with 32 runs, 27 RBI, 16 extra base hits, 15 walks and 49 strikeouts in the equivalent of about 90 games played.

Granted: if Pedro Martinez, El Duque, Ryan Church, Moises Alou, Angel Pagan, and Luis Castillo hadn't all been on the DL for extended periods this season, they could easily have accounted for the 6.5 games that the team trails the Phillies, but every team gets injuries. This team fills holes with old, slow, injured, has-beens with no minor league prospects to be found. When do we start blaming Minaya?

It is hard to give any credence to what Tim Donaghy says about games being fixed in the playoffs because Donaghy is a crook who could likely just be throwing blame around, but the guys sure picked interesting games to mention. And not that I think we should go around believing every scrumbags conspiracy theories, but didn't the world react the same way to Jose Canseco's wild claims until they turned out to be almost 100% true? And David Stern is not doing the league any favors by being a smug, arrogant prick that almost makes you root for the other scumbag to bring him down.

Soon I will research the worst current contracts in baseball. The Dodgers' announcers were ripping the Mets last week for having this crazy payroll and I have a feeling they would not be happy with that I discover (I am looking at you Esteban Loaiza, Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt).

The Orioles sent Steve Trachsel to the minors the other day. Since he has been gone, the league-wide average game time has dropped by 11 minutes.

Kevin Garnett did a commercial for ABC's Finals coverage in which he makes sweet love to the Finals Trophy. I don't like players holding a trophy they haven't won and talking about how good it feels to hold it. You don't touch it until you deserve to touch it.

Through three games, the Lakers' fans are proving what everyone things about L.A. sports fans: lazy, unintelligent and uncreative. They don't cheer unless the scoreboard tells them to, and the best chants they came up with were "Boston Sucks," and "MVP." Really? OK, so "beat L.A." is not much better than "Boston sucks," but it is better somehow. But Laker fans cannot compete with a Boston crowd that chants "No means no" at Kobe Bryant on the free throw line. Absolutely classic.

ABC pulled the most shameless in a long line of shameless promotional plugs in Game 3. They actually had a 3-D cardboard Wall-E ad in the seats for the game. This makes Fox look tasteful and dignified. Well, not dignified...actually, just forget I wrote that.

Chris Simms has asked to be released from his contract because he says he doesn't see himself fitting into their QB plans and wants to play somewhere. I have two thoughts here: the Giants should sign him and win Super Bowls with father and son (son on the bench of course), and why did Simms feel no hope for playing time in Tampa? San Diego Torero Josh Johnson, baby!

Michael Strahan pulled a John Elway and retired at the pinnacle of his career. Thank you Michael!

Dontrelle Willis was sent to the Minors because he was struggling. Not big news there. Except that he wasn't just struggling: his ERA was 10.32, and he had 5 strikeouts and 21 walks in 4 starts. And he wasn't just sent to the Minors, he was sent to Class A! Ya think his $29 million contract will be on my list?

Kobe Bryant got a technical foul in Game 2 and another in Game 3 for whining for calls on the only two plays that there probably was no actual contact. He hasn't punched anyone yet though, so thus far his behavior has been well above standard, except the pouting, screaming at teammates to stop shooting and give him the ball, whining, posing and almost total avoidance of the team's actual offensive strategy.

The Celtics are not as bad as everyone thought they would be and the Lakers are not as good. It is very likely that Kobe will not pass the ball once for the rest of the series (1 assists in the "must-win" Game 3). And as long as I watch the games with my friend Justin (who went to Gonzaga but I am the forgiving sort), the Celtics will win if the pattern holds.

5 points goes to any reader who can remember the first and last name of Big Brown's trainer without looking it up. Post it in a comment to this post. It has only been 5 days and already no one cares. But hey, at least everyone thought he was a complete ass during the duration of his 15 minutes.

It is weird to think that I have played golf on the course on which the U.S. Open is being played today/this weekend. That almost makes me a pro. I want free clubs. When I played at Torrey Pines, it was the week after the Buick Invitational in 2000. The course was tough and long, the rough was deep and the empty grandstands and T.V. towers were very intimidating. This week, the course is playing a lot tougher and a lot longer, the rough is probably 2 inches deeper and the grandstands and T.V. towers will be full. I am starting to think that professional golfers might be better than I am.

Milton Bradley blew up and tried to kill someone yesterday. Not news, I know, but it is a funny story: the Royals announcer said that Bradley would be well served to own up to his mistakes and move past them like Josh Hamilton has done. Bradley went nuts when he heard the comments, stormed through the clubhouse and had to be restrained from going into the booth to apparently take the guy's life, thus proving the guy right. He then was dragged back to the clubhouse and began sobbing about how no one thinks he's changed and gotten over his anger problems.

Maybe it was the scouting report on the Diamondbacks, but on Tuesday John Maine threw 104 pitches. 80 of them were fastballs. How about mixing in an off-speed pitch once in a while (that said, he struck out seven and was in line for a win before the bullpen blew another lead and the offense feel asleep in the last half of the game again).

Milton Bradley just screamed at me from the street. He's coming upstairs...I have to go.