Author: Anthony Stalter (Page 1240 of 1503)

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.

Rangers’ outfielder Milton Bradley didn’t take kindly to what Royals’ television announcer Ryan Lefebvre had to say about him during Texas’s 11-5 victory over Kansas City Wednesday night. So Bradley decided to pay Lefebvre a visit in the press box, that is, before Rangers’ manger Jon Daniels stopped him in the stairway and brought him back to the clubhouse.

“I came in to watch my at-bat on the video and all of a sudden I heard my name,” Bradley said Thursday. “It was a spiel like five minutes out of the blue about me. I didn’t think anything he was saying was anything positive.

“I never met him and I heard him talking about me on TV. I was upset and was going to introduce myself. … All I wanted to do was introduce myself and tell him the stuff you’re talking about is uncalled for.”

Bradley has a history of losing his temper.

He slammed a plastic bottle at the feet of a fan in the right-field seats at Dodger Stadium in 2004 after someone threw it on the field. With San Diego in the pennant chase last September, he tore the ACL in his right knee when he was spun to the ground by Padres manager Bud Black, who was trying to keep him from an umpire.

Bradley knows the perception of him by outsiders may not be good because of past incidents.

“I’ve done some things that have been construed as violent or temperamental,” Bradley said. “But I’ve never physically harmed anyone. You can talk to any teammates I’ve had and the most they’ll tell you about me is I’m moody. I love to laugh and have fun, but when I’m out on the field it’s strictly business. It’s my life. I take a lot or pride in what I do.”

It must be hard being a professional athlete and constantly under the microscope. A lot of people would get pissed off to hear themselves trashed by someone they didn’t even know. That said, Bradley is a professional athlete and hard as it may be, he’s got to let things like this roll off his back. He shows more character by not reacting the way he did, then trying to force the issue. I sympathize with him in a way, but unfortunately being ripped by the media is part of the job.