[A hurt Jim Hendry takes his jersey back from Milton Bradley.]
If MTV endures all the heat from “Jersey Shore,” I’m hoping my pitch for “North Shore,” a show about real life dumb ass Cub execs running wild at the Winter Meetings is green lit. Yes, arrogant white-collar loudmouths nationwide will object, but I just call that good press.
Gordon Wittenmyer’s wrap-up of the Winter Meetings appears today in the Sun-Times. The upshot, of course, is that after a week of Jim Hendry psychodrama over Milton Bradley, no team in baseball is willing to take MB unless the Cubs eat the majority of his $21 million two-year deal. Dusty Baker, Greg Maddux, Sammy Sosa, Jacque Jones, Juan Pierre, and now Milton Bradley’s probable exit from the North Side, it’s becoming obvious that leaving the Cubs on bad terms is about the only way to go. Hendry, of course, is the one factor that hasn’t changed in all those exits. More and more, it looks to be about him.
Hendry gave Bradley a 15-game suspension for dissing Wrigley fans. Now Hendry is said to be after Milwaukee OF Mike Cameron. Cameron’s a good player, but he’s also gone on the record with the Sun-Times’ Wittenmyer as saying he too has a problem with the racist element in Wrigley’s bleachers. Btw, no knock on Cameron at all. He’s right. Even Bradley refused to go there and claim racism at Wrigley. The Trib’s Paul Sullivan spun it to say Bradley was “suggesting” racism. No “suggesting” with Mike Cameron, MC says it’s flat-out true. So what’s going to change in the Jim Hendry high drama management of the Cubs? Hendry himself says racism is not an issue at Wrigley (despite the obvious). Apparently, the same mistakes, the same Hendry ego, the same suck-up to Wrigley’s lamest regulars, will continue.
Hendry let Bradley dangle when reporters baited him on race, when reporters called him a “nutbag,” and then when MB refused to talk to the media, the Cubs scolded Bradley over it. Hendry’s 15-day suspension of Bradley sent the word to baseball that MB was impossible. Then Hendry, genius that he is, decides to put Bradley on the market because he feels he has no choice. Yes, there’s a choice. Hendry needs to get over himself, and as one unnamed manager put it re Bradley, bite the bullet and play him.
The obverse side of the coin.
Every one focused on heads, ignoring
there is tails.
Milton Bradley is not delusional, he seemingly
lacks the capacity to articulate in the language
the wise seers comprehend. It is a task to go
to your work place and listen to the cacophony
of a lower form of life emoting their common
philosphies with singularity, “Yo Nigger”
It is fortunate there is a living God who
is forgiving for those who seek him, inclusive
of the aforementioned miscreants.
I am a sports agent, snow white and with a
client list with a full complement of Black
Baseball players. They are an integral part
of my family.
It’s like Scott Boras and Walt Whitman had a baby.
A weird baby.
I have a hard time overlooking MB’s history of passive-aggressive jackassery. At the same time, I don’t want to let the douches in the bleachers off the hook, either. I think the only solution is to nationalize the Cubs and convert them into a traveling roadshow a la the Washington Generals. Seize and expropriate the Yankees to play the Globetrotters role and spread a little freedom and democracy one bucket of confetti at a time.
MB has self-control issues that he let’s get in his team’s way. My real issues here are the bleacher bund and the chi sporting press. I won’t miss Bradley when he’s gone so much as be pissed that he’s the only one held accountable for this debacle.