A 'fool' by any other name: Milton Bradley

I won't talk about what a fool is likely to do with his money. Not when I can simply talk about the fool himself. His name is Milton Bradley, a $10 million head-case who plays right field for the Chicago Cubs. 

Smart but unschooled on how to be a grownup, Bradley had a typical Bradley comment to a question from an ESPN Chicago reporter after a 15-6 loss Tuesday night to the Nationals, the worst team in baseball.  

The question: "Obviously not the type of beginning you felt you were gonna have here on the homestand."

Bradley's answer: "No, we got a Rodney King beatdown tonight."

Well, "GameBoy," as Bradley was jokingly referred to during his stormy seasons with the Indians, could have picked a lot of things to compare a nine-run loss to, but Rodney King's bloody, brutal beating should have been the last example he picked. For as horrible as a nine-run loss to the woeful Nationals might be, it compares not a bit to what the L.A. cops did to King. 

To even put the two events in the same sentence, as Bradley did, shows the kind of ignorance too often seen in athletes like him. They speak first without putting a minutes thought into what they say and how those words might be construed. Typical Milton Bradley stuff, though.

I had to see him daily when I covered the Indians and he played for them. It wasn't an experience I relished. For you never knew what personality would show up from day to day. Bradley could be the smiling, jovial Bradley, a young man of wit and charm. Then, in an instant, an anger could well in Bradley, erupting without notice to turn him into the devil in a jockstrap. The latter was a frightening sight to see, because you could never figure out where his anger springs from or if it would turn into violence.

During his Indians days, I heard the pop analysis of Milton Bradley: He had no strong black male in his life. Surely, that absence shaped his character. Yet thousands of black males have rose above that limitation, carving out successes despite of it. And Bradley has been better positioned than most of them to find a calmer, more reasoned terrain to live his life. He seems not to get it.

His shallowness would be understood if you didn't see his intellect. He can't mask it. Yet that's what is most confounding about him; he's content to carry out the handiwork of a fool. I never figured out why. 

I guess I should be inclined to call Milton Bradley an "enigma" and be done with it. To do so, however, would be an injustice to the word. To call him "complex" might not be accurate either. I guess that's the image he wants for himself -- the person nobody can figure out.

New Eagle Lands Without A Big To-Do ...

The headline: “New Eagle Has Landed,” words that had nothing to do Thursday night with a moon landing. 

The words referred to a much-anticipated event, one that, while significant in its own way, could never measure up to a more historic occasion decades ago.

The new Eagle was Michael Vick, a convicted felon who was trying to resurrect an NFL career that unraveled like a spool of thread because of Vick’s fascination with fighting – and then lying about -- pit bulls.

His return didn’t draw the public outrage many people had expected. Animal rights activists who criticized the team’s decision to bring in someone guilty of so ghastly a crime had talked of massive picketing and of boycotts. But nothing like that occurred in Philadelphia – not inside the stadium and, apparently, not outside of it either.

Philadelphians stayed focused on Vick’s football and not on his criminal past. They showed a side of themselves that is … well, not all-too common among the hypercritical people who call the “City of Brotherly Love” their home.  They showed compassion.

In the end, Vick’s debut was just a footnote in a 33-32 win over the Jaguars. His role in it wasn’t much: six plays in the first half, one as a slot receiver. He looked rusty, but he was back after more than two years, which likely meant more to him than it did to anybody else.

“It felt the same,” Vick said of getting on the field. “It’s almost like riding a bike, you know. You never forget how to do it.”

For him, this was one small step, a step that might bring Vick the glory and the adulation he once enjoyed before he went to prison. He’s a long way from reclaiming that glory, but at least his journey won’t be interrupted because people refuse to accept the fact that Vick, repentant about his past, had paid his debt to society.