Milton Bradley is dealing with some rough issues these days. Apparently the poor guy feels as though he just has to accept his “bad guy” imagine in baseball.

From ESPN.com:

“If I was a musician, I’d be Kanye West. If I was in the NBA, I’d be Ron Artest,” the 31-year-old former Expo, Indian, Dodger, Athletic, Padre, Ranger and Cub said this week. “In baseball, they’ve got Milton Bradley. I’m that guy. You need people like me, so you can point your finger and go, ‘There goes the bad guy.”

Here’s that “bad guy,” ejected twice in three Mariners spring games last week. The first ejection remains a joke to Bradley. He disagreed with another called third strike, then umpire Dan Bellino thought Bradley gave a demonstration immediately afterward at the plate.

Bradley thought it was the third out, and said he was one move into taking off his batting glove to prepare to play the field.

“Never dropped my glove. I pulled one strap off my glove, like this,” Bradley said, pulling off the velcro strap on his batting glove. “But if you read the paper, it will say I removed my gloves. It’s exaggerated, because that’s what the media does, you know? I pulled one strap.

I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I wrote that Bradley played like crap in Chicago last year. In fact, if I were Lou Piniella I would have rather had a trash bin out in right field last year instead of Bradley. At least the trash bin can’t forget how many outs there are in an inning.

I agree with Cubs’ GM Jim Hendry when he said that Bradley should take a look in the mirror and stop blaming everyone else for his problems. Perception is reality and no matter how much Bradley thinks the media is out to get him, its not. The media wants a story and Bradley provides one with his behavior. If he stopped acting like an overgrown child then the media would stop treating him like one.

Photo from fOTOGLIF