So here we are again. Same player, same reaction, different recipient to the anger. Los Angeles Dodger Milton Bradley flew off the handle for the second time in two weeks last week.
I was behind Bradley 100 percent in the bottle-throwing incident. For a fan to throw a full bottle of beer at Bradley, plastic or not, is just inexcusable. I don't care how much they get paid, no one deserves that.
We treat professional athletes like they are second-class citizens who don't have feelings. Like they should take our worst verbal barbs for 162 games and be happy because they get paid so much. It is the only area in our lives that would allow such activity.
If Donald Trump makes a bad decision and his company loses money, the stockholders can't walk up and spit on him.
If Tom Cruise makes a bad movie, moviegoers can't go and throw nickels at him (although after Eyes Wide Shut, I considered it).
Those two make more money that Bradley could ever imagine making. But he is expected to absorb all of it with a smile on his face? No.
This time, though, he was out of line. Not that we know what really happened, but just putting himself in a situation like this while in a playoff race is just plain asinine.
According to accounts, Los Angeles Times reporter Jason Reid was asking Bradley a question about how the St. Louis fans were treating him. That is a perfectly valid question in the eyes of most anyone.
It was Bradley's first game back since the bottle-throwing incident at home against Colorado, and Reid had every right to ask how a visiting crowd had treated him. Apparently, Bradley played the race card on Reid, who is black. He allegedly called him an Uncle Tom and a sellout.
Which is an ironic statement, considering Bradley contributes to lining the pockets of rich white men in the L.A. organization when he steps on the field.
Nevertheless, Reid was a little upset about this and was said to have gotten up in Bradley's face.
The details from there seem to be murky. Bradley swears he was trying to walk away and that Reid was so infuriated that he just came at him. If you listen to the interview being conducted over the phone by Dan LeBatard with another player in the Dodger clubhouse, you can hear the skirmish in the background. You can hear people saying that a reporter and a player are fighting.
After that, it gets kind of vague.
We might never really know what went down that day, due to the absolute spinelessness of FOX Sports Midwest reporter Brent Stover.
Stover was in the clubhouse with his cameraman shooting an interview for his St. Louis based program later that night. The camera turned to see what was going on and the cameraman got what has been described as "great footage" of the incident.
Stover said that a representative from the public relations staff approached him and asked if he would erase the tape.
That is an absolute insult. Don't expect him to cover up your crazy player. If he didn't want to answer the question, he should have said "no comment." Or better yet, the Dodger personnel could have gotten Bradley out of the clubhouse and into the players lounge before the media was let in.
Then the strangest thing happened, though. Stover erased the tape, citing that he felt threatened by the Dodger staff. Then he added that he felt it was the right thing to do for both sides so they wouldn't be embarrassed.
Since when does a journalist, and I am using that term loosely here, erase anything newsworthy to appease the side that has egg on their face? It's not as if the Dodgers were going to hire Vinny and Guido to rough him up and take his tape.
Stover was probably told that if he didn't erase the tape, he would not be allowed into the clubhouse. At that point, you throw caution to the wind and run the tape. The ramifications of seeing Milton Bradley in a fight with a reporter would have triggered two things.
First, the Dodgers would have been so busy fielding phone calls from everyone and their mother looking for a quote that they wouldn't have time to worry about if Stover was in the locker room for the rest of the series.
Second, it would have been the end of Milton Bradley's season, no doubt about it. If a tape like that gets played on a loop on ESPN, Major League Baseball, and Bud Selig would have been forced to act. MLB says they are looking into the incident right now, but without videotape to back up any of the stories, there isn't much that MLB can do.
Bradley has been nothing but a headache for the team this season, on and off the field.
The Dodgers picked Bradley up from Cleveland, and were hoping to have an all-star. He was batting .321 with a .421 on base percentage for the Indians. For the Dodgers, just a meager .261 and .362, respectively.
The offseason is going to start soon for Bradley, and the Dodgers will probably do anything they can to find him a new home. If they do, it will be his fifth trade in five years of play.
Kind of makes you wonder if what we see is just the tip of the iceberg.
Bradley might have gotten lucky and will ride out the rest of the playoffs without a suspension. Just the fact that a person who has said he has anger issues would be in that situation says a lot. It says that either he was using anger as an excuse for his behavior, or that he really does need professional help.
He better figure it out soon, because the public isn't going to put up with his antics for much longer.
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