Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star notes that nobody should blame Rangers’ outfielder Milton Bradley if he feels underappreciated for being a side story to teammate Josh Hamilton’s amazing turnaround from a drug addiction.
Batting No. 4, right behind Hamilton, Bradley (.333) is swinging the fourth-hottest bat in the majors. He has every right to feel partly responsible for the MVP numbers Hamilton is posting.
Bradley also has a right to feel ignored. He’s enjoying the best season of his career, and no one seems to take notice or care. Rangers teammates Hamilton, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young are all outperforming Bradley in All-Star fan voting.
Nope. When it comes to Milton Bradley, all people want to talk about are his temper tantrums and Hamilton’s sobriety.
Lefebvre did both within earshot of Bradley. You can understand why Bradley was offended, without condoning his reaction. Like every athlete, Bradley has an ego that wants to be fed. It’s not happening in Texas this season. He’s a sidebar to Hamilton, a situation Bradley has grudgingly accepted.
“If it was taken that Milton Bradley needs to clean up his life off the field, then I regret making the analogy,” Lefebvre said. “I have no business making judgments about Milton Bradley as a father, as a husband or as a friend. What I was trying to convey is that it’s really sad that he carries himself on the field in a way that prevents people from appreciating his talent.”
Whitlock knows more than anybody that the media is going to run a good story into the ground and right now, the story in the baseball world is Josh Hamilton. Bradley is probably underappreciated, but he can’t try to run up four flights of stairs in efforts to confront a television announcer and not have the media and blogging world rag on him. I like to believe fans are fair, however, and that eventually Bradley would get noticed for his solid season. But he can’t continue to wind up in the headlines for temper tantrums.
