The further removed we get from the Milton Bradley suspension, the angrier I get at both sides. Milton Bradley is a raging asshole who brought all of his made-up woe upon himself. But Jim Hendry’s reaction to Bradley’s latest antics is infuriating as well. But if Tom Ricketts knows what he’s doing, the Bradley suspension should be the final nail in Hendry’s coffin.
First, Bradley. For some inexplicable reason, there are a few remaining Bradley defenders. You’re idiots. I’m speaking solely about defending his attitude, not his performance on the field. If you’re still sitting there in front of your monitor thinking to yourself, “Milton is just misunderstood,” or “It’s the fan’s fault and the media’s fault that Milton was unhappy,” well, then, I expect you’re too busy cutting out the eyes of all the people in your newspapers to really pay attention to this post, anyhow.
Milton’s takes a page from Jacque Jones in his latest sophomoric stunt, involving his mommy in his claims of racism. Hey, Milton? Grow the fuck up. My mom came to my defense once. In third grade. I was mortified then.
Incidentally, the meta headline (or whatever the hell you call it) of that story is outstanding:
Chicago Cubs’ Milton Bradley would return to team if allowed, his mother says
Rejected headlines:
Chicago Cubs’ Milton Bradley would return to team if he finishes all of his homework, his mother says
Chicago Cubs’ Milton Bradley would return to team if he eats all of his broccoli, his mother says
Chicago Cubs’ Milton Bradley would return to team if he wipes that look off his face, his mother says
Here’s my biggest issue with Milton. The article states as follows:
According to his mother, Bradley’s unhappiness in Chicago stems in part from racism that his 3-year-old son has faced at school.
Wait. A bunch of three-year-old kids who barely have the common sense to not shit themselves are hurling racist comments at one another between nap time and learning how to open a Capri-Sun without making it explode? I have a very hard time believing that. But you know what? I’m going to go ahead and give Charlena Rector (Milton’s mom) the benefit of the doubt. Somehow, the kids in Little Milty’s class got their hands on a rap album, or a video game, or the internet, or some other EVIL INFLUENCE that parents like to blame for their kids’ assholishness instead of just admitting that they’re shitty parents. And from that EVIL INFLUENCE, those kids learned “the N word.” And then they decided to use it in class. Something along the lines of, “Hey, did you just shove that crayon all the way up your nose? N—–, you are CRAZY!”
“When racism hit his 3-year-old baby in school, he couldn’t take that,” Rector said in a radio interview earlier this week, according to the Sun-Times. “Parents, teachers and their kids called him the n-word. He didn’t even know it was a bad word until his mom told him.”
Okay, you fucking liar. I’ll buy your rather incredulous statement that a kid or two might have used “the N word” around Little Milty. But you are actually suggesting that not only did the kids use a racial slur to describe Little Milty, but THEIR PARENTS AND TEACHERS did. Where does he go to school? In Louisiana in 1827? You’re more batshit crazy than your batshit crazy son.
Moreover, if this is anything less than utter horseshit, certainly the school which Little Milty attends will launch an all-out investigation of the teaching practices of his teacher.
INVESTIGATOR: So, what is on your syllabus after coloring?
TEACHER: Oh, I strip the children down to their underpants and whip them until they are broken.
INVESTIGATOR: I see. And after that?
TEACHER: After that, we do show-and-tell.
Not only did this bitch accuse a bunch of three-year-olds of racism. Her careless, hate-filled bullshit could SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT THE LIFE OF A TEACHER. I’m pretty damn sure this teacher did absolutely nothing wrong. But the administration at this school has to protect its own ass, right? They’d be insane not to at least look into this, right? Fuck you, Charlena Rector, for insinuating this. And fuck you, Milton, if you actually told her this was going on.
When asked why her son shared the information only with her this season, Rector said, “Milton is a quiet person. Stuff like that, he keeps to himself. He doesn’t want to talk about that because he doesn’t think anybody cares. It is a heartbreaking situation.”
Also, he doesn’t talk about it, because it’s total bullshit. And nobody does care, because you’re both despicable human beings. I feel terrible for Little Milty. He is going to grow up in an environment of such hatred, and he’ll probably turn out as batshit insane as his father and grandmother (and grandfather, for that matter).
Fuck. Milton. Bradley.
All of that being said, and acknowledging the fact that Bradley is essentially the devil, Jim Hendry is a goddamn fool for suspending him. First of all, it is unprecedented for a team to suspend a player for comments he has made to the media. I know one might point to John Rocker’s suspension for his racial comments as precedent, but it is not. Rocker was suspended by Bud Selig and the MLB for his comments, not by the Atlanta Braves. Go do your Googley best and try to find me an MLB team that has ever suspended one of its players for being a dick. I don’t think it’s happened.
I strongly believe that the MLBPA would win a grievance against the Cubs, if they choose to file it. The MLBPA is the strongest player’s union of the major American sports. If they allow teams to start suspending players for comments made to the media, they are opening up a whole can of worms. Who’s to say Nomar Garciaparra shouldn’t have been suspended for looking pouty in the dugout toward the end of his Red Sox career? Or that Adam Dunn shouldn’t have been suspended for saying he doesn’t like baseball much?
But I couldn’t care less if the grievance is upheld or not, or if Milton gets paid or not. I do care about how this suspension affects my (tenuously) favorite team. It does. Negatively. Hendry has to have known for some time that Milton was not going to be a Cub on Opening Day of 2010. He also has to know that Milton’s performance this year has been considered poor by many. He also has to know that Milton’s continued pattern of shitheadedness isn’t helping his trade value. In fact, just about the only way to make Milton a more worthless bargaining chip is to publicly admit that you are sick of his bullshit and want him gone.
When Hendry suspended him, that’s exactly what he did.
How in God’s name is Hendry going to trade Milton now? The FIRST question out of any potential trade partner’s mouth is going to be, “So, why did you suspend him for the last two weeks of the season?” What the hell is Hendry going to say? “Because he’s a racist asshole who disrupted the clubhouse so much that not a SINGLE ONE OF HIS TEAMMATES rose to his defense after the suspension. You want to swap us Johan Santana for him?”
The disturbing thing is that this is not a new pattern of behavior for the Cubs. The Cub organization has a infuriating history of character assassination just before trading a player. Sammy Sosa, Kyle Farnsworth, and Corey Patterson all had their character called into question (justifiably or not) before they were traded. WHY? Why the hell would you do anything but protect the reputations of these guys if you’re trying to trade them? If I were trying to sell you a car, do you think the first thing I’d say would be, “It’s an unreliable piece of shit, and you have to start it with a coat hanger (when it does start), but- Well, there’s no but. This car fucking sucks. It’s ugly, it gets terrible gas mileage, and it once became sentient and drove through the wall of an orphanage.” Hendry may know baseball, but he’s an amazingly bad salesman.
The only explanation I can think of for this stupid Cub behavior is the same one I thought of when the Boston Red Sox unloaded Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, and Manny Ramirez. After immortalizing those three players throughout their entire Red Sox careers, when the Sox were looking to unload them, all you heard about was what horrible people they were. Nomar was a whiner who laced his Milky Ways with arsenic at Halloween. Pedro was an old-man-beater whose jheri curl was styled by the blood of the innocent. Manny was a selfish clown who farted in the hot tub and tried to bite the bubbles.
Do the Red Sox and Cubs do this to try to brace the fans for losing one of their favorite players? If they are, it’s an unbelievably stupid strategy. As I mentioned before, the Cubs have effectively destroyed what little trade value Milton might have had. But even moreso, the majority of fans (yes, even idiot Cubs fans) are smart enough to not really give a shit about character. Until the very end, Sammy was beloved in this town, despite being a jerk throughout his entire career. Why? Because he hit home runs and was the greatest offensive force the Cubs had even seen. Why did we suddenly start to hate him? Not because of the cork. Not because he left a game early. Because he got out-homered, out-RBIed, and out-OPSed by Moises Alou and Aramis Ramirez in 2004. Suddenly, Sammy being Sammy pissed everyone off.
Not all Cubs fans are stupid. We don’t all need to love the guys in the blue pinstripes and need to hate them when they go. Hendry should have sucked it up, kept Milton on the active roster (hell, tell Lou Piniella to BENCH him if he bugs you that much), and preserved what little trade value he had. Now, Hendry is over a barrel and is going to trade yet another guy for absolutely nothing.
Nice choice, Jim.
