It Couldn't Have Happened to a Better Guy...

Thank you Milton Bradley for brightening my day yesterday. Now I don't like to see athletes get hurt; but if it is going to happen, it might as well happen to Bradley. And yes, it certainly did look like he was egged on by the umpire. That is not shocking to me in the least.



But even if egged on, you can read between the lines and see that this guy is a first-class idiot. According to the Canadian Press:

"It's terrible. And now, because of him, my knee's hurt," Bradley said Sunday. "If this costs me my season because of that, he needs to be reprimanded. I'm taking some action. I'm not going to stand pat and accept this, because I didn't do nothing wrong."

Bradley was playing his third game back from a 12-game injury layoff. Batting .313, Bradley hit his 11th homer earlier in the game.

As Bradley walked to the plate in the eighth, umpire Brian Runge asked the player if he had flipped his bat in the ump's direction after taking a called third strike to end the fifth.

"I said, 'Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous,"' Bradley said. "He said, 'Well, it was reported to me by the other umpires that you threw your bat at me.' And I said, 'That's completely ridiculous. I've done a lot of things. I'm trying to turn it around. I would never harm anybody."'

Bradley singled, then asked Winters if he told Runge he threw his bat. "He goes, 'Yeah, you did.' I go, 'Are you kidding me? That's completely ridiculous. If I strike out and the inning's over, why are you looking at me? Everything's always about me."'

Then, a fan heckled Winters.

"I pointed to the guy in the crowd, affirming it," Bradley said.

Bradley said Winters responded with a string of expletives.

"That's when I went at him and he kicked me out," Bradley said.

Here's some more material on Bradley as Alan Schwarz, from ESPN, put a pretty pink bow on Bradley's checkered past.