Archive for the 'Kooks' Category

Modern Day Milton

Eric, May 31, 2010, 1 Comment

A few days ago, a reader named Greg left an epic comment on one of our most popular posts: The Definitive Unsourced Milton Bradley Timeline. We liked the comment so much that we decided (with his gracious permission) to republish it here:

As you say, the timeline requires periodic updating. Here’s my suggestion for the moment you left off in 2009 to date:

2009 C: December 18, more than a few days later, the Cubs trade Bradley to the Seattle Mariners for RHP Carlos Silva and cash.

2010: May 4, 2010: With the team on a losing streak, and Bradley one of the only bats recently making any noise, he is moved into the cleanup spot, where he starts off by going 0-3. After being pulled from the game in the 7th inning after consecutive strikeouts looking, the latter with the bases loaded, and the team trailing 3-1, he reportedly complains that manager Don Wakamatsu isn’t defending him sufficiently with the umpire and says, “I’m packing my stuff. I’m out of here.” The team loses 5-2, its fourth in what would become an eight game losing streak.

May 5, 2010: Bradley makes a scheduled appearance at a local elementary school, gives an impassioned talk about what motivated him growing up to become a ball player, then meets with his manager and the GM and says he needs help for ongoing personal problems. Art Thiel’s Seattle PI column describes the prior night’s loss as the “worst game of the season” and notes that Carlos Silva will continue to be the “gift that keeps on giving, right into his start for the National League in the All-Star Game.” Art’s “worst game of the season”would be topped (bottomed?) by others before the month of May is over.

May 6, 2010: The Mariners announce that they have placed Bradley on the restricted list. Thus begin his 15 days off to seek counseling.

May 19, 2010: Bradley is reactivated, the Mariners having gone 3-10 in his absence. Other candidates for “worst game of the season” in the intervening stretch include back to back 8-0 losses to the Rays and the Angels May 6 and 7, and a 6-5 loss to the Orioles in which Felix Hernandez pitches 7 innings, and exits with a 5-1 lead going into the bottom of the 8th.

May 24, 2010: Bradley gives interviews about why he asked for help. He says he thought about getting help in 2009, while still with the Chicago Cubs: ”I wanted to take some time out, get my thoughts together, and just speak to someone and get an understanding from somebody unbiased,” he says. “But you can’t really do that in Chicago. There’s just too much going on.” Meanwhile, in Arlington, Texas, the Cubs spot Carlos Silva a 4 run lead in top of the first, and he scatters 6 hits and 3 runs over 5 1/3 innings to improve his record to 6-0.

May 25, 2010: Bradley, hitting cleanup for the first time since his May 4 meltdown, goes 2 for 4 with a two-run home run and three RBI as the M’s defeat the Tigers 5-3. After his RBI single in the 8th scores Chone Figgins for the go-ahead run, he leaves first base as a pitching change is made and celebrates with teammates in the dugout. He comments later, “I was full of joy,” he said. “The whole day, I just felt right. I had the right attitude and the right approach. My mind was clear, and I didn’t have a worry at all up there. I was able to come through.”

…and they all lived happily ever after.

Kooks, 1 Comment

Ellis, D. Watch This Right Now.

Eric, November 12, 2009, 4 Comments

I don’t normally just post random stuff here, but this is more than worth it. It’s a rendering of the famed Dock Ellis LSD-no hitter, with narration by Dock himself. The killer animation is by James Blagden. Thanks to RBI artist Mark Penxa for passing this along:

Kooks and Movies, 4 Comments

Milton Bradley Timeline Update

Eric, September 23, 2009, 0 Comments

As history unfolds, so must our recordings of it change. Here is the recently added update to the world famous Definitive Unsourced Milton Bradley Timeline.

2009 B: Hitting .257 in September, Milton Bradley is suspended from the Cubs for the duration of the season after blaming Cubs fans for the team’s failure to win a World Series (you would suspect a GM would be thankful for that sort of comment). The suspension leaves Bradley and the Cubs in a sort of purgatory, as it is clear the team does not want him back and he does not want to be back in Chicago. How will this glorious soap opera end? Fear not. Evidently a graduate of the Nothing is Fucked school, or completely unaware that the goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain, Hendry reassures Cubs fans: We don’t anticipate any problems. We’ll have it all worked out in the next few days.

CLICK HERE FOR THE TIMELINE IN ITS ENTIRETY

(also a good excuse to employ theour used the Kooks category).

Kooks, 0 Comments

The Sheff Abides

Eric, August 5, 2009, 5 Comments

Last night I got the chance to sit front row behind the home dugout at Citi Field. Needless to say the game between the Mets and Cardinals was stunning. I saw Johan being Johan, Albert being Albert, and K-Rod being Joe Borowski.

But mostly I saw Gary Sheffield.

I’ve been fascinated by Gary Sheffield since his tumultuous stint with my Dodgers. He was awful off the field in LA. He bitched about his teammates in the media, he fought with management, and he whined and whined and whined. But goodness gracious did he hit.

No matter where he’s gone Gary Sheffield has always been that guy. He’s never been your favorite player, but he’s often been your favorite team’s best player. He’s never been enough of a problem off the field, or enough of a superstar on the field to elicit romantic baseball love or fanatic baseball hatred from fans. Gary Sheffield is meant to confuse, meant to muddle, and meant to be pondered. In my mind he is a first ballot Hall-of-Famer.

The thing about Gary Sheffield is that he’s very serious. I saw it yesterday. He emerged from the dugout for the National Anthem with a distant look on his face. As other players sang, blew bubbles, and grinned their way through the song, Sheffield stood focused. He was solemn and somber. I wondered for a moment if I had discounted him. Perhaps the brooding Sheffield was more complex than I had ever given him credit for. Perhaps he was a humble patriot doing his American thing for these few quiet moments before the game.

But his expression stayed that way. Over the nine innings, Sheffield’s face remained distant, sullen. It was as if he carried some burden, understood some troubling reality that we in the stands could never appreciate. Indeed, it was not the Anthem, it was just Gary. It was just Gary playing baseball. And when Gary plays baseball he is more than just immune to his surroundings – he appears oblivious to them. It’s as if he doesn’t even see his own teammates on the bench.

The game, it seems, happens around Gary. He simply is. The Sheff abides. He doesn’t put on a uniform, but rather the uniforms seem to put themselves on him. He doesn’t come to the stadium either. The stadiums he plays in grow organically from the ground beneath where he happens to be standing, so as to leave him at ease in left field, the batters’ box, or the on-deck circle. These things happen by sheer momentum. They are just the way of the universe.

In a sense, there’s a Ricky Henderson-ness to Sheffield. Ricky played baseball like gravity. He was everywhere, and he was the same everywhere. Sheffield is like that too. He is serious and wise and silent and ubiquitous and eerily consistent. He’s only played for eight teams in his career, but it seems like so many more. He hasn’t hit 30 home runs in a season since 2005, but his violent pendulum of a batting stance still induces the fear of nature into opponents.

Sheffield went 2-4 yesterday, with a double and a pair of runs batted in. He jogged and took a couple awful, lazy angles in left field. On an exciting evening, a back and forth, high scoring, star-driven evening, Gary Sheffield was muddled, inhibited, himself.

America, Conventional Wisdom, Kooks and Thinking, 5 Comments

The Definitive Unsourced Milton Bradley Timeline

Eric, June 30, 2009, 9 Comments

Update: As history unfolds, so must our recordings of it change. Here is the world famous Milton Bradley Timeline with an update for recent events:

I meant to say something intelligent and original about the recent Milton Bradley/Lou Pineilla fracas. But the more I tried to write, the more I found myself thinking back on just how this ridiculous and completely unsurprising situation came to be. What began a cursory glance at the wikipedia page of one of baseball’s most fascinating outfielders unraveled into the following:

1860: A restless printer/lithographer in Massachusetts invents a board game called The Checkered Game of Life and forms a company in his own name to release it. He accumulates vast wealth, and his name, Milton Bradley, comes to personify joy in the form of wholesome family fun. He will die an old and happy man, blissfully oblivious to the suffering his own name will one day cause a young man from Southern California.

1978: A healthy baby boy is born in Harbor City, CA just outside of Long Beach. The boy’s father goes behind his mother’s back to fill out the birth certificate, covertly passing his own name down. Thus is born Milton Obelle Bradley Junior. Said Junior’s duped mother of her husband’s deception: “He wanted a Junior, and made damn sure he got one.”

Milton Bradley has 11 career sac bunts.

1996: Milton Bradley is drafted by the Montreal Expos out of Long Beach Polytechnic High School. Bradley graduated from Long Beach Poly with a 3.7 GPA, and was kicked off the baseball team only once (briefly, his sophomore season for “combativeness”).

2004: A busy year for our hero begins in February when he is sentenced to 3 days in jail for allegedly driving away from the police after being stopped for speeding. Mere weeks later, in March, he is pulled out of a Spring Training game by Cleveland manager Eric Wedge for failing to speed…down the base paths that is! The two exchange words after Bradley allegedly doesn’t run out a pop fly. He is promptly traded to Los Angeles.

2004 B: Bradley’s tenure with the hometown Dodgers finally gets interesting. On a cool June night, Bradley is ejected at home plate after words with the umpire. He screams a lot, is sort of restrained by gangly manager Jim Tracy, and finally lays his helmet, bat, and gloves in the batter’s box calmly and exits the field. All seems right in Chavez Ravine until a moment later, when our hero emerges from the dugout with a bag of baseballs, emptying balls onto the grass and haphazardly launching dozens into the outfield. Five tool player indeed.

2004 C: A fan in Dodger stadium throws a bottle at Milton in the outfield. So he picks it up, strolls over to the stands, and slams the bottle down in the front row, treating fans to a colorful lecture on the fourth amendment and his rights to privacy and not getting beer thrown at him.

2005: Our slightly less angry hero calls teammate Jeff Kent a racist. Nobody really doubts him, but the Dodgers opt to stick with the healthier, more productive Kent. Milton Obelle is dealt to Oakland over the winter for food blogger Andre Ethier. “We got along as best as we could,” said Bradley of his imperfect relationship with Kent, “It didn’t work for me.”

Or maybe he's the only sane one left.

2007: Milton Bradley is now a Padre. In a fervent late-season argument with an umpire, Bradley is restrained by his manager Bud Black. Somehow their legs tangle, and Bradley spins awkwardly to the ground, tearing his ACL. But wait, there’s more! In a Zinedine Zidanian twist, Padres’ First Base coach Bobby Meacham claims that Bradley was baited by the umpire, who uttered ”the most disconcerting conversation I have heard from an umpire to a player.” Either way, the Padres’ playoff chances spiraled to the ground with their center fielder.

2008: Bradley has his best and healthiest year as a big leaguer. As a DH, he leads the American League in batting average and OPS, and makes his first All Star team. He even writes a poignant guest entry about family, faith, and baseball on the New York Times Bats blog. Oh yeah, he also chases down a Royals’ TV commentator after a game over some comments made about his behavior issues. Thankfully, our hero is intercepted before reaching his target, allowing him to redirect the beating toward AL pitchers.

2009: Milton signs a 3-year deal to play outfield for the Cubs. Immediately the Chicago media calls him names. One columnist goes so far as to suggest that the Bradley signing is a mistake, because a player who once accused a teammate of racism might not get along with too well the charmingly racist fans in the Wrigley Field bleachers. (No, don’t examine the racist fan base; question the Milton Bradley for the speculated possibility that he might be sensitive to racism.) He bats terribly and has a rocky relationship with equally charismatically destructive manager Lou Pineilla. Somewhat more surprisingly, Bradley is responsible for a Phil Jackson-esque moment of charming high road Zen. The exchange, courtesy of Saturday’s Chicago Sun Times:

According to sources, Piniella then shouted at Bradley, ”You’re not a player! You’re a piece of sh–!”
Bradley then said, ”I have too much respect for you to respond to that,” a source said.

*Editor’s Note: I made a slight edit to the title of the post. The old one was kind of pointlessly mean.

Features and Kooks, 9 Comments