So, that’s how you REALLY feel Milton?
Written by The Go-To-Man Mattie T. on March 10, 2010
This has been such a often conversated topic that i feel it’s time for me to discuss it.
Just last night on ESPNChicago.com, Seattle Mariners outfielder & former Cub Milton Bradley talked to Colleen Dominguez about the displeasure of his lone year playing in Chicago.
Bradley said he felt “like a prisoner” while playing for the Cubs & never went out to eat except for one instance where he was told to “go back to the ghetto where he came from”.
He also took it even further with the following quote:
“Well, I mean unless you go out there and you’re Superman — you’re Andre Dawson, you’re Ernie Banks, you’re in the Hall of Fame — then it’s going to be tough. People are just the way they are.
When you get paid a lot of money to play this game, they expect miracles. And when you don’t go out there and perform like that, then people don’t like it. People don’t want to see a guy that’s brash and cocky and a little arrogant and kind of does his own thing making a lot of money. They were like, ‘He doesn’t deserve that.'”
I have a real big problem with Bradley’s above comment. Is he saying that you have to earn some sort of special “credential” in order for Chicago fans to accept you?
Let’s take Corey Patterson as an example here. Patterson spent his first 6 major league seasons with the Cubs & was expected to be the team’s primary lead-off hitter.
Things did not go well for Patterson, as he showed little plate discipline & struck out by the bunches. The fans often voiced their displeasure at home games whenever Corey did something wrong.
Patterson did not blast the Cubs’ media or front office upon his trade to Baltimore & actually finished 3rd in the entire AL in stolen bases (45) after leaving Chicago.
Jim Hendry said at the time of Patterson’s trade that “It wasn’t a good fit for him to be a bench player here, at this point, after what happened last year. It’s a situation where Baltimore gets a chance to take a good gamble on a kid who still has a lot of upside if it works.”
The Bradley situation though is totally different. Milton claimed to have had no friends on the team following the trade of backup infielder Joey Gathright to Baltimore on May 8th, 2009.
He later did a controversial interview with the Daily Herald that wound up causing his suspension for the rest of the 2009 season, as he said that “It’s (Chicago) just not a positive environment. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There’s too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone asking the same questions repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. You got out there and you play harder than anybody on the field and never get credit for it. It’s just negativity.
And you understand why they haven’t won in 100 years here, because it’s negative. It’s what it is.”
