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Milton seemed like a good guy and a supportive teammate during the Derby.
As was said MB dogged it during a game in Spring Training. But he fails to mention that after Wedge got on him , he got right back in the face of Wedge and they had to be physically separated. Then Bradley left the park without permission, grabbed a cab in his uni and went home.
So yes Bradley wasn't exactly the mature person he portrays now either.
That being said Eric Wedge, seems to have a problem with outspoken ballplayers ie: Bradley, Brandon Phillips.
Well, to be fair, in the US, when someone appears to be questioning your intelligence, SATs and GPA are a quickly available and generally understood set of numbers, or at least they were until the SATs added the third component.
Now, in Canada, we don't have to take anything like the SATs, and every post-secondary educational facility seems to use its own different GPA scale, so it's a bit harder to have a universal number which is meaningful. As an example, my university used a 12 point scale, whereas the next closest university used a 4.3 point scale, and another nearby one used a 7 point scale. It took a couple confusing conversations for me to figure out that my friends weren't all failing out.
Now, if you want to get into a discussion as to how well GPA and SAT performance correlates with intelligence, then that's a whole other issue.
Well, sure. Haggling over 20, 50 or even 100 points is silly. But I've never met anyone who scored very high on the test who I'd describe as an idiot and I've never met anyone who scored really low who I'd say is very smart. (other factors such as work ethic, stubborness, luck, etc. may make the latter more successful than the former, of course).
If someone calls you an idiot or questions whether you could write an essay, having scored 1120 (at least on the test MB would have taken) is sufficient rebuttal. He isn't a genius, but it isn't surprising he could write a good essay.
At those two particular things...
I'm not sure you can pin the Phillips thing on Wedge. When the Indians cut him, he was nearly 25 years old, had put up nearly 500 miserable plate appearances in the majors, was coming off a .256/.326/.409 season in Buffalo, and was out of options. The fact that Phillips dubbed himself "The Franchise" probably didn't do him any favors, but even if he was the best teammate in the world you could be forgiven for not buying into Brandon Phillips as a major league ballplayer in the Spring of 2006.
Now, all that said, deciding to cut Phillips and keep Ramon Vazquez was completely indefensible.
I've only met one person who scored high on the SATs who I would describe an idiot. Of course, that's because he was a Canadian who paid to take them with no intention of applying to an American school.
You had me at...OH HI JOHN BRATTAIN, HOW YOU DOIN'
You do realize that us Canadians don't appreciate it when you Americans take advantage of our unintentionally perfect straight lines, right?
Shouldn't it be "we Canadians"? 8-D
They spell it with a "u".
In sports and other areas where challenging authority is frowned upon and teamwork is paramount (military, theatre/film-making), it is often the smarter people who get labelled as trouble-makers because they think for themselves. Dick Allen, Bill Lee, Albert Belle, Bradley and others are smart people who got in trouble with insecure managers/GMs when they challenged their (often not-well-thought-out) strategies. Stupid people get in trouble for different kinds of behavior. When I hear of a player who is always at odds with management, I figure he is probably a pretty smart guy who is unable to effectively explain his frustration.
There may also be a racial element. Being smart and black in America is historically frustrating on a lot of levels. I'm not sure how this works into the psyche of the smart black player or that of management and fans in response to the player, but I know it's always there.
I can't speak for Dick Allen or Bill Lee, but Bradley's and most definitely Belle's issues go beyond just trouble with authority figures. It seems they have have had trouble controlling their anger with authority and non-authority figures alike.
I knew one guy like that. He was really, really smart, but he had some significant mental/social issues that kept him from taking advantage of his native abilities.
Guys like that are definitely the exception rather than the rule, though.
Don't you just hate that?
Shades of "Ball Four", with Bouton and Marshall arguing about throwing programs with Sal Maglie.
Agreed. It's their inability to appropriately control their anger and deal with these frustrating situations that often brings on the trouble. I've dealt with people like this in life, as I'm sure you have. They have trouble letting things go, and seem to over-react to small slights, but they are far from stupid.
including barry lamar - interesting he didn't have trouble with dusty or leyland - well him and jim had an argument, but hey, lots of people have an argument.
the only ("known to be") intelligent Black guys playing baseball who didn't get shtt are guys who are real smooth like doug glanville and tony clark. or guys who aren't quite Black enough - like grady and russell martin
Big difference between challenging authority figures and exploding into violent rages.
Doug Glanville managed somehow. I'm sure there are plenty of others. Not saying it can't be a factor, but anyway you slice it, Bradley is an outlier.
Nobody who hit three-run homers ever had any trouble with Earl Weaver.
As far as the race issue, there is no question that it factors into how Bradley is perceived and covered. How much of a factor it is is impossible to quantify.
what cuacasian guys with obvious anger problems get the milton bradley treatment? and i mean guys who are as good a ballplayer as milton?
and interesting that some people figger that IF milton hot hisself a temper then he can't also do things like write well enough to get people wondering if he got someone else to write his blog
Dan, I'm sure you know that this has become the "Kazmir" argument of Indians baseball with different theories and a ton of finger pointing, but I still lay this directly at the feet of Wedge. Shapiro seemed more than open to having Phillips continue as an Indian on the bench that year, and the only one in the organization who seemed to not want him there was Wedge. You just don't give up on 'elite' prospects after a few disappointing seasons being jerked around between the majors and AAA for Ramon Vasquez and an A ball arm. Other teams without WS aspirations, which the Indians would be included in that year, I'm sure could have found a way to stash a plus defensive infielder who could play 2nd/SS and probably even a little third with power potential on the major league roster at least for a little while. I just don't think there is still anyway to defend that decision by Wedge.
And we've seen that situation play out this year with Marte-Blake that I believe speaks to some of the issues that Bradley talked about. Casey is the epitome of the kind of guy Wedge like, he's gritty, uniform dirty, with steely determination in his eyes and Wedge has treated him as some invaluable franchise player for the past few years with only some good RISP numbers this year to back up his trust. Rule 5 picks in other organizations get treated better than a guy like Marte, who despite whatever you think of his potential is still young, a better defender than Blake already and has better power potential than Casey. And I still believe that if Shapiro hadn't learned anything from the Phillips fiasco, Wedge would have easily had Marte jettisoned for the likes of Morgan Ensburg by now.
Jeff Kent definitely comes to mind, but he was treated as just an ornery jerk instead of the complete psycho that Milton is portrayed as. And if any incident deserved to be treated as evidence of being a sociopath, it was Kent maintaining his weird lie about hurting himself washing his truck.
Oh I don't think there is any question that Bradley's race affects how he's portrayed... he's just the stock, "Angry Black Guy," to the media for the most part. I was more disagreeing with the notion that being a smart black man makes one more likely to have the sort of problems Bradley's had. I suppose it's possible, but as I said before, Bradley is kind of an outlier here.
Not sure what the Milton Bradley treatment might be (scorn for his temper, maybe?), but I'm not so sure you can blame it on his blackness, as Albert Belle kept getting work. And I am sympathetic to the argument.
Kevin Brown was usually portrayed as an ornery jerk as well. Probably because he really was kind of an ornery jerk. It's hard to think of any recent white players who have had the kind of outbursts Bradley's had, so a direct comparison is difficult.
Scott Olsen is the only one, though he's not as good as Bradley.
But I'm not really sure what the Milton Bradley treatment is.
Announcers saying stuff like this:
"It was a conversation about how Josh Hamilton has turned his life around and has been accountable for his mistakes," Lefebvre told The Associated Press. "Right now, it seems like the baseball world and fans are rooting for him. ... It doesn't seem like Milton Bradley has done the same thing in his life."
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3438827
(laughing)
Best Regards
John
Maybe he's talking about accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
That said, even if Shapiro had gotten his way and kept Phillips, what would have happened? It's likely it would have gone down exactly like Marte-Blake did this season: He'd have rotted on the bench until around now, getting maybe 50-60 at-bats filling in for Belliard and Peralta, then would have gotten two months in the lineup. If he put up the same types of numbers he put up in Cincinnati in '06, he'd have gone into Spring Training '07 fighting for a job with the (s)crappy veteran utility infielder flavor of the month (Hector Luna, Mike Rouse) and maybe had a shot to be the everyday second baseman.
Anyway, my point is this: If Brandon Phillips hadn't been cut, I don't think he gets the chance to become the player he is today. It's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation for Wedge. If they keep him, then he's just another ex-prospect-turned-utility infielder and then people criticize the player development system for another failed megaprospect.
Which brings me to Blake-Marte.
I do not, for the life of me, understand the pathological dislike Indians fans, especially the letsgotribe.com crowd, have for Casey Blake. He's certainly not a great ballplayer, but he's good for 35 doubles and 20 home runs a year, has put up OPS+ numbers of 122-99-114-101-114 the last five seasons. His glove's nothing special, but man...look around the league. He's a pretty solid starting third baseman. A better player right now than Mora, Lamb, Beltre, Ramon Vazquez (!), and Hannahan. No worse a player at this minute than Chone Figgins (and his .320 SLG) and not a ton worse than Joe Crede. I'm no Casey Blake apologist, but I don't understand what the guy did to inspire this hatred.
Should Marte be playing more? Absolutely. Barring injury or fatigue, Marte should play every single day between now and October. There's nothing to lose anymore. But to me, boiling it down to Marte vs. Blake negates a lot of Blake's value. Garko's been dogcrap, so move Casey to first and play Marte. Corner outfield has been a complete clusterf**k, so move Casey to the outfield and play Marte at third.
There's about ten things about this team that need to be fixed before Casey Blake. The guy gets on base and hits for some power. That's a bit more than just some good RISP numbers.
I tutor New Trier kids and teach at a high school on the south side of Chicago. Our average ACT is in the 14.5-16 range.
I went to a school that had the highest average score in the country my Junior year with something in the 32-33 range.
The kids I teach are no dumber than my high school classmates and me, nor my charges from New Trier. They are simply the product of a society that is often more concerned with their inappropriate hairstyle than their grades and their own lack of faith that working in school will get them anything.
On a related note, my recollection is that the racial wage gap actually gets bigger and bigger the more intelligent and qualified the people being compared are and there's a similar dynamic with the hiring dynamic.
I tell my kids that they lose if they let that deflate them--it should make them want to build skills more and knock everyone in the teeth with their ability. But sometimes, it's a hard sell.
"Intelligence" is a very multifaceted, complex, non-linear thing. Doing well on standardized tests and getting good grades are an indicator of certain kinds of intelligence, but also indicate several other things unrelated to "intelligence." The idea of multiple intelligences goes back to Gardner and even before that, but many people still label it as a binary like "racist" or "not racist."
this is exactly right. and there's a whole host of reasons for it, ranging from problems in the family, community and peer attitudes towards education, the de facto segregation that exists in the American school system, the lack of quality teachers willing to go to those schools for long enough to be effective (Teach for America, i'm looking at you), the entrenchment of the teachers unions in defending bad teachers, and the attempts of religious conservatives and libertarians attempting to bleed the beast by removing much needed funds via voucher programs. and then some. the kids there aren't any dumber than the kids who i went to school with and who ended up going to big name academic schools. they were just born at an incredible disadvantage compared to those kids.
1. You can be very intelligent or very educated and yet make very poor choices. I had a guy work for me who scored 1600 on the SAT but we had to fire him because he is nutty.
2. How a person chooses to deal with the various stresses of life has a lot to do with how one was raised and what examples they saw from parents and other role models. Not everyone acts like their parents (some consciously try to be different), but we are all influenced to some degree. The few comments I've seen made by Mama Bradley lead me to believe she didn't do him any favors with her example.
3. Not everything that involves a player of color is a racial situation. Some are and some aren't.
4. Like it or not, how a player treats the media greatly affects how future situations are portrayed. For example Kenny Rogers (or Randy Johnson) pushes a cameraman and it is treated by ESPN as biggest story of the decade. Manny Ramirez pushes the 60 years old Red Sox traveling secretary and it is just Manny being Manny. If Manny had pushed a reporter it would have been in the news for weeks.
5. The claim that all the black guys who get labeled as trouble or angry are just the intelligent ones is ludicrous. There are many intelligent black athletes who are perfectly well adjusted adults. Albert Belle was very intelligent but that is not why he was viewed as an angry crazy guy. He was considered crazy because he did some crazy crap. However, he was the most focused batter I've ever witnessed. His craziness never affected his on field performance.
6. Canadians spell funny.
I don't see it that way. Race is often a subterrnaean issue in American life; the question is how much of a factor it is in any given situation, and that is impossible to "measure" since any situation will have variables.
In this case, there is no question that Bradley' situation vis-a-vis Hamilton's and the coverage thereof has many non-racial or supraracial factors, but I think race is clearly part of the picture.
So's your mom.
Shapiro chose to re-sign Ronnie Belliard instead of opening the way for Phillips. There never should have been a situation in which Phillips would have been delegated to the bench, although Phillips did himself no favors in the Indians' organization.
Anyway, robinred's right in that race is a subterranean issue in America, to a degree that people do and say things all the time that are related to people's race and they don't even know they're doing it, would deny that they were if it is brought to their attention. I do think that it should be fairly obvious, looking at the broad landscape of baseball over the last 60 years, that black players get picked on to some degree. Does Miltron Braldey fly off the handle more than your average person? Sure. Did Barry Bonds use steroids to rewrite the record books? Almost certainly. Was Albert Belle a wacko? Without a doubt. Was Reggie Jackson a loudmouth? No doubt about it. But the incidence of black players who get that sort of reputation seems much higher than the incidence of black players, period.
I'm not saying that there's a vast media conspiracy, and probably there are very few outright bigots in sportswriting, being as it is that sportswriters tend to be well-educated and consistently exposed to people of all colors and creeds through their work. But something does happen. Does it really seem likely, given the thousands of ballplayers who have come and gone in the last 20 years, that Albert Belle and Milton Bradley have been the only, shall we say, colorful personalities? Clearly not. But when Brett Meyers beats his wife or Jeff Kent "falls off his truck", it's a big deal for a while and then goes away. Of course some people remember, but you don't see reference to those players' uneven personalities in every article about them thereafter.
This is not to say that no white player has ever been unfairly maligned by the press or gotten a somewhat permanent reputation as an uncool dude. And it's not to say, "Man, those black guys aren't nutty, they're just black!" But there is an undeniable pattern, at least from where I sit.
Becaue up util this year, he has been absolutely atrocious with runners in scoring position -- including this year, he has hit .235/.323/.380 in 967 plate appearance. That has erased much of his offensive value. Here are his Win Shares Above Bench over the last five years:
2004: 5
2005: -2
2006: 3
2007: 0
2008: 6
For three of those years, he was basically a replacement level player.
I think it's apples to apples to point out that Julio Lugo is more or less exactly as guilty as Meyers when it comes to spousal abuse. And I'd argue that the coverage of (and callbacks to) his crime are very similar to those of Meyers.
This is particularly true given that Hafner is on the DL and the Indians have no designated hitter. There are plenty of ways to tinker with the lineup and still get Marte regular playing time. And to be fair, Wedge did start Marte in three of the four games in the last series of the first half. Hopefully that keeps up.
'05 and '07 I'll give you, but which is the other year? '06? He was hurt and missed 50 games. Prorate that +3 and it's just as good a season as '04 and '08.
OK, isn't Brett Myers' more well remembered for his domestic violence incident than Bradley is for his (for good reason, I grant, but it kind of flies in the face of your overall point)? And pardon my ignorance, but what is the real story behind Jeff Kent and his truck?
Not bad.
I thought you would use this, though:
Race is often a subterranean issue in American life
So's your Mom
***
I thought what made Vortex's original post so strong is that it acknowledges that there are no absolutes and a simple counterexample is not really at that useful in discussing the wider dynamic he is referring to.
Your response is probably the most tame example and should merely push the conversation to further interesting places, but certainly it is the standard dynamic that we get "there was one white guy one time who suffered some racism from someone, so there's no such thing as institutional racism" or "there's a successful black dude! Check him out! there's no racial issues here!" responses to any points about general inequality.
Once again, not to pick on you, but just to observe to the gallery, a game winning single does not mean that Neifi Perez is not a shitty hitter, and a single counterexample does not dismiss vast societal trends...
Of course they can and do. But we expect stupid, self destructive behavior from stupid people. Bradley isn't stupid, which makes his behavior more disappointing. Not unique, just more disappointing.
I was living in the BA at the time, so let me see if I can do this by memory. It was either right before or after the 2003 season that Kent turned up in the off-season with a broken wrist. He claimed he had been washing his truck in his driveway and fallen off. It turned out that, instead, he was out doing stupid things on a motorcycle, which is not only incredibly dumb for a professional athlete but was also expressly forbidden by his contract.
At the time, Kent was not well-loved by the local media, because he is, well, an ornrey jerk, and he tussled with Barry Bonds in the one place on Earth where he was popular. (They'd had a fight in the clubhouse or on the bench the previous year.) Anyway, it's just another incident in the unlovely history of Jeff Kent, Irascible Moustache Man.
But Voxter says:
But when Brett Meyers beats his wife or Jeff Kent "falls off his truck", it's a big deal for a while and then goes away. Of course some people remember, but you don't see reference to those players' uneven personalities in every article about them thereafter.
I was replying that continuing "look what that crazy guy's doing" behavior is simply not the same as the domestic violence example or the truck incident. To a large extent, I believe that the coverage "enjoyed" by Uncle Milty is driven by two facts - that he continues to behave like this, and that his behavior is usually captured on video.
His Win Share Percentage (a rate stat) for those years were:
2004: .501
2005: .291
2006: .454
2007: .342
2008: .668
Yes, 2006 was above replacement, so I was wrong about that, but it wasn't "just a good of a season" as 2004 and 2008.
Your mom is the real story behind Jeff Kent's truck!
OK, that's what I remembered. I guess I'm not sure how that compares to Brett Myers or MB's issues.
I've seen that less "intelligent" people cling to these procedures and clearly use them as a crutch - if the procedure is written incorrectly, they take no responsibility for their part in the overall mistake. If something external changes, they're completely lost. And they demonstrate no concept of "outside of the box" thinking about the task - just encyclopedic knowledge of the procedure.
The more intelligent people (in my eyes) are the ones who use the procedure as an occasional helping hand, but rely on their talent and overall knowledge of how things work to accomplish a task. And yes, I've seen them fly completely in the face of established procedure, which confuses the hell out of the others in the room. So I agree with little k here - I've witnessed unnecessarily self-destructive behavior in people I regard as very smart.
So's your mom
.
Not bad.
I thought you would use this, though:
Race is often a subterranean issue in American life
So's your Mom
Could have gone either way. I was mostly just sayin, 'hey'.
That's an expectation problem. When I see self-destructive behavior, especially when it's anger-management and interpersonal issues in professions like the ones I mentioned in post #13, I expect that the person is probably above-average in intelligence.
EDIT: Or what Kevin said.
And that's a valid point, especially the second half -- he behaves badly on the field as well as off, and it attracts attention. As to whether his continued behavior is the issue, I'd question whether or not there isn't continued bad behavior from other guys as well. Obviously, Milton Bradley has done strange things since his days in Cleveland and still does them occasionally. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially in the case of the sports media, which is not exactly the most rigorous.
It is an example of unpredictable and unwise behavior from a guy with a pattern of not being very nice. It's true, however, that he did not violate the law or attempt to do harm to anyone other than his stupid self. It probably doesn't fit.
I think one must wonder the degree to which the storyline is the way it is because it's a reflection of reality or if it is the way it is because it was latched onto early. "Look at what that crazy guy is doing" is a perfectly valid response to the foibles and follies of Milton Bradley. But I'd be willing to bet that it's a perfectly valid response to the behavior of other guys who nonetheless don't evoke that response from the media. Whether Jeff Kent or Brett Meyers is the perfect example of that I couldn't say -- maybe not.
So perhaps I lost the forest for the trees with my specific examples, but the overall point remains that it seems to me that black players, particularly American black players, are more likely to get painted as the villain in the piece than their white or Latino counterparts. Almost certainly not consciously, but systematically.
It has been quite awful this season (it was bad last year also) -- he is dead last in the AL in RZR and Dial has him at -6.3 runs so far this year.
>>>A better player right now than Mora, Lamb, Beltre, Ramon Vazquez (!), and Hannahan. No worse a player at this minute than Chone Figgins (and his .320 SLG) and not a ton worse than Joe Crede.<<<
FWIW, Dial posted his 2008 Offense Plus Defense metric for the AL today:
Beltre: 14.6
Figgins: 7.5
Vazquez: 5.8
Blake: 1.7
Crede 1.5
Hannahan -7.1
Mora -12.3
Lamb -21.2
Hate to keep hijacking this thread, but you are right that Casey Blake has become to easy of a foil for a segment of the Indians community, but I believe that its just a proxy argument against Wedge. It's been hard to argue against keeping Wedge, especially after the surprisingly good years of 2005 and 2007, but I believe that a lot of fans just don't trust him and his ability to deal efficiently with a roster. Thus, Casey as the consistently average 3b who seems to get a disproportionate amount of praise and playing time from Wedge is used to demonstrate where Wedge's philosophy goes wrong. It's also summed up in Wedge's "Circle of Trust" reliever situation last year that unfortunately might have helped to shred Betancourt's once valuable arm. Casey is a pretty valuable player but one who, at least I believe, has been used somewhat inefficiently as a 3rd baseman as opposed to being a super-utility guy who gets used at 1st, 3rd, RF and LF for 5-6 games a week.
1. He is looked upon as a fantastic corner player. Really, his production is slightly above average at best for a corner position but on the Indians he is the most productive of the 4 corners. But because of lack of production out of the other three he is treated as a star, both by the fans and (especially) by Wedge. I'd like him a lot more if he was the third or fourth best position player on the team. As an aside, I also blame the Wedge/Blake WSU connection for this preferential treatment.
2. He always seems to have a peculiar hole in his offensive game. For years I was able to trumpet his stats with runners on.
2005-2007:
Runners on: 679 AB .219/.288/.342 17HR
none on: 833 AB .299/.371/.535 43 HR
To his credit, he has really turned that around this year putting up a .328/.421/.516 line with runners on, however, there is now this:
2008 Home: .243/.341/.318 1 HR
2008 Away: .320/.376/.575 8 HR
My limited brain power just can't reconcile these statistical anomalies, so I just hate the guy. I'd assume other Casey Blake Haters have similar reasoning.
Complete agreement. A former girlfriend of mine whose parents both went to Oxford, had a 170 IQ was the most self-destructive person I've ever known. She could charm an audience of any background, was about the most charitable person that I've ever met and then turn around and completely lose it over the smallest of aggravations. And when I say lose it, I mean like rage, crying and screaming in some unholy cocktail. It wasn't till later that I found that her equally intelligent mother was pretty much the same way and that emotional and intellectual intelligence weren't the same thing.
Then maybe he doesn't wear it on his sleeve enough to win over some folks. Or maybe he needs to acquire a monkey then kick it off his back to win their sympathy. I dunno. I do know that there've been some black folks with bad tempers that managed to make a good living playing major league baseball (and more power to them, I guess).
That too.
Yeah, but isn't that more of a case for hating the Indians' other three corner players?
Especially since he turns into A-Rod when he plays Detroit. You could look it up.
This. I actually like Casey Blake just fine, and I admire what he's done in carving out a successful career for himself in the majors once he finally got the chance at age 29. Also like that he's done whatever is asked of him and has generally put up solid offensive numbers, especially this year.
But if one of Blake's primary assets is supposed to be his versatility, why did Wedge trot him out at 3B Every. Single. Day. and let Marte rot on the bench for the entire first half? Especially when Hafner and Victor were obviously hurting and moving Blake to 1B could have given either of them a day off.
I've soured a lot on Wedge as a manager this year, primarily because of the way this team always, always plays tight when the spotlight is on them, but his dumb refusal to utilize Blake at 1B or in the OF is another reason.
Also, Dan, I think you're overstating the Blake hatred at letsgotribe.com. I think most folks over there appreciate Blake, especially how he's played this year. All (most, anyway) of the eye rolling and teeth gnashing is directed at Wedge.
And as for the anger problems - can you imagine what it must have been like growing up with that name? How many smart ass comments must he have got in third grade? If it wasn't in his nature to be confrontational at first, it probably would have been after the 1000th time some little jerk made fun of his name...
And it's appreciated. Busy as hell and dealing with some personal ####. How you doing?
It would appear that way, but its really more of a case of having to talk with people on a daily basis that confuse Casey Blake being an awesome corner player on our team with being an awesome corner player in general.
In other words, everyone knows our corner players stink, but it sometimes seems as though very few people understand how overrated Blake is.
I always thought it was because Wedge so admired Blake's facial hair, but that makes more sense.
>>>But because of lack of production out of the other three he is treated as a star,<<,
He is treated as the gritty white, overacheiver that displays a blue collar work ethic that many Cleveland fans love to overvalue (see Mark Price, Bernie Kosar). However, Blake is more like Craig Ehlo than Price or Kosar.
So you expect more stupid behavior from intelligent people than you do from stupid people? Interesting.
More importantly, what baseball players generally regarded as "intelligent," have had the sort of problems Bradley has had? Almost all ballplayers I can think of who are generally accepted as being "smart" tend to be guys who've never been embroiled in controversy regarding their stupid behavior. Doug Glanville, Mike Mussina, Carlos Delgado, Greg Maddux, etc.
Contrast this with Brett Myers, Scott Spezio, Jason Giambi, etc. All generally considered to be knuckleheads.
So's your mom.
It's a Trap!
(so's your mom)
BTW, Maddux may have the highest baseball IQ you'll ever see, but if you run into him away from the game, chances are he's not reading a book without pictures.
It was during spring training. Missed the first week of the season because of it too, if I remember correctly
At the time, Kent was not well-loved by the local media, because he is, well, an ornrey jerk, and he tussled with Barry Bonds in the one place on Earth where he was popular. (They'd had a fight in the clubhouse or on the bench the previous year.) Anyway, it's just another incident in the unlovely history of Jeff Kent, Irascible Moustache Man.
He's still referring to a rather easy nickname derived from changing the vowel sound in his last name to a short "u" by some in the local media. And to be fair, he not only tussled with Bonds, but managed to do so in a manner that made Bonds look like a good teammate (namely, he started yelling at David Bell over a defensive mistake he himself made, and Bonds told him to get off Bell's case, take responsibility for his own mistakes, and go piss off). So he would have been made out as the bad guy in that incident pretty much anywhere, since he actually was.
And as for the anger problems - can you imagine what it must have been like growing up with that name (Milton Bradley)?
It seems to me that people with "funny" names usually grow up to either have (A) incredibly fantastic senses of humor or (B) incredibily non-existant senses of humor. From what I heard from people who dealt with him, Milton falls way to the side of B.
How much does your mom weigh?
I could not disagree more. There is absolutely no shortage of stupid people with very strong opinions.
To a degree, yes. Because while everybody does stupid or foolish things at times, stupid people engage in those behaviors more frequently and to greater detrimental effect.
I've never heard of Belle or Allen being considered especially intelligent. In any event, Allen was almost certainly impacted by overt racism far more directly than Bradley, which makes me more inclined to give him a pass. Lee and Bouton were flaky and/or pains in the asses to authority figures, but didn't engage in Bradley-esque behavior. Assuming Belle's anywhere near as bright as Bradley, he might be a decent comp.
Wouldn't surprise me at all, but he's generally considered to be a "smart" guy. I'm still not really seeing any "smart" players who share Bradley's problems. Rather, most guys thought of as smart tend to be "well behaved".
That's true. But Churchill's drinking didn't seem to endanger his career or limit his accomplishments. The guy lived a long, astoundingly successful life. Bradley's inability to control his temper has already hurt him and his career significantly, and may cause more problems before he's done.
For what it is worth Belle was a good enough HS student to be offered admission into the Air Force academy. Now obviously that comes with some caveats..
-He was a star HS FB player and the AFA might have been more enthusiastic to recommend his appointment for that reason.
-People with good HS grades/scores are not necessarily smart
...but since none of us actually know the guy, it at least makes it seem likely that Belles innate intelligence is above average
It all happened in 2002. Kent was screaming at another player in the dugout for embarrassing him (David Bell made a weak throw that Kent muffed IIRC) and that big clubhouse cancer Barry Bonds interceded to protect the team-mate and told Jeff to cool it. He didn't so Barry grabbed him, in the dugout.
And he broke his wrist doing a wheelie on his bike during the beginning of spring training and lied about it to this day. The Giants considered canceling his contract over it.
Was this Milton's excuse for beating his pregnant wife? That he was challenging authority?
Or was it rage from his black wife discriminating against him? Milton's profession and fame has benefited him much more than the color of his skin has hurt him.
For example when he was a Dodger, the police were called three times to his home in one summer on domestic violence calls. Despite his wife's lip being bloodied, despite her claim that he choked her, Milton was never arrested. It seems likely Milton was given a pass by the local police/prosecutor because he was Dodger, and in fact the calls weren't even made public until months later which smells like a coverup. In at least one case he wasn't even interviewed by the police.
http://www.koat.com/sports/4919409/detail.html
Milton Bradley is not maturing. He's had baseball related incidents every year of his career. And most of the people commenting here didn't know even half of his off field incidents with cops, his wife, etc. Every team he's played for has given up on him for one reason.
Milton Bradley is a batshit insane a-hole. The only reason he's still in the MLB, is that he's also a helluva ballplayer. But because he's such a great player, he's allowed to run up such a long laundry list of incidents. A lessor player would have joined Joey Belle on the sidelines long ago. Kevin Brown? Jeff Kent? Jose Guillen? All of em, even Brett Myers is a church going pikers by comparison.
And even a-holes have good days and appear to be good team-mates for a while...
Pfft. I have a name like that, worse probably as these things are measured, and it didn't turn me into an occasional maniac. Mostly it's just sort of funny. The worst part is everyone remembers my name and I have no chance of remembering all their names.
Belle is definitely a pretty sharp guy (who also did/does a lot of stupid stuff). A former trainer with the Indians that I know said he was very smart, he also liked to play chess before games, and I believe he is a CPA now. I remember reading somewhere that he wrote an occasional column for one of the Baltimore papers when he was an Oriole.
Wow, stalkers have their own professional association. Very impressive.
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