Milton Bradley Embarrasses Cubs - Awesome.

I'LL SHOW YOU BALLS!

I must start by saying it’s been a while since my last post. My wife and I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and have been planning our 2nd honeymoon to Disney World with our three kids (we leave on Wednesday). Plus, lots of travel for work has left me bereft of free time.

That free time that I had? I certainly didn’t want to waste it writing about the disaster in DC. We suck; and my mom always told me that if I couldn’t say anything nice about someone I probably shouldn’t say anything at all. So I took a hiatus. But now I’m about to throw mom’s advice out the window.

Now what fun would it be to pile on the lowly Nats, though? Everyone knew we were going to struggle this year. That’s like giving the nerd in high-school an atomic wedgie - WAY too easy. Just once I'd love to see the nerd slip the smokin' hot cheerleader a rufee and nail her - thereby embarassing the high-school football team she's been laying pipe with. So instead of giving the Nats the atomic wedgie, I’d like to take a moment and once again laugh at the Cubs and nail their girlfriend.

After the 2008 season the Cubs were said to be desiring a RFer with some pop in his bat (an opinion I find curious since they really had an average CFer and a defensive hack in LF, but okay). They focused on Milton Bradley and Bobby Abreu. The Angels moved pretty quickly on Abreu once they stopped focusing on Mark “the Anti-Christ” Teixeira.

Once Abreu signed with the Angels the Nationals offered a contract to Adam Dunn for 2 years at $20 million. He begged the Cubs to match the offer and the Cubs instead decided to offer a three year/$30 million dollar contract to the often volatile Milton Bradley. Dunn ends up with the Nationals.

So the Cubs who were already in bed with one hot-head (Carlos Zambrano) added Bradley and all his baggage. Almost immediately – as could’ve been predicted by anyone with any common sense whatsoever – Bradley started lashing out at the Chicago media and the Cubs fan base. The big blow came in late August when he interviewed for an article by the Associated Press which include these clips:

"I'm talking about hatred, period. I'm talking about when I go to eat at a restaurant. I've got to listen to the waiters badmouthing me at another table, sitting in a restaurant. That's what I'm talking about. Everything."

"All I'm saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home,"

So does he regret signing with the Cubs, who are his seventh major league team?

"I don't regret anything," he said. "I regret that there are idiots in the world, that's what I regret."

Bradley is the idiot. I hate the Cubs; and even I wouldn’t say that the fans are brimming with hatred. Their fans don’t strike me as the types of fans who would “badmouth” him while at a restaurant with his family.

Lately, events transpired that led to a quick spiral into the abyss.

Bradley was pulled from his game early on in a double switch. Apparently, the move really angered Bradley and he pulled himself from the Thursday game with knee soreness. After the Thursday game Bradley had this exchange with members of the media:

Reporters: What happened with the injury?

Bradley: "I'm not talking about that. What else you got?"

Reporters: Why did you come out?

Bradley: "I got knee inflammation. I got two knee surgeries. That happens when you got knee surgery, in case you don't know. What else you got?"

Reporters: How long will you be out?

Bradley: "What else you got? Anything significant?"

From there, Bradley refused to play in Saturday’s game which precipitated a verbal argument with Cubs hitting coach Von Joshua. The following day (yesterday) Bradley interviewed with the Daily Herald. The following is an excerpt from that story:

Bradley claimed to have no opinion on where he bats - “In the lineup,” he said of his preferred spot - and the only time he became expansive at all was when he was asked if he had enjoyed his first season in Chicago.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s just not a positive environment. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There’s too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone asking the same questions repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. You got out there and you play harder than anybody on the field and never get credit for it. It’s just negativity.

“And you understand why they haven’t won in 100 years here, because it’s negative. It’s what it is.”

Asked whether he was talking about the fans, the media or even the Cubs organization, he replied: “It’s everything. It’s everybody.”

This finally led to Cubs GM Jim Hendry suspending Bradley for the rest of the season. The following is an excerpt from the Tribune quoting Jim Hendry:

Hendry mentioned the "issues we've all lived with during the year," referring to Bradley's publicized battles with umpires, fans and the Chicago media.

"The last few days became too much for me to tolerate," Hendry said. "I'm certainly not going to let our great fans become an excuse. I'm not going to tolerate not being able to answer questions from the media respectfully. Whether you feel like talking or not, it's part of all of our jobs."

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. I'm not going to allow disrespect to other people in that locker room and uniformed personnel, and I'm certainly not going to let a player, as was mentioned in the article today, (talk about) negativity of the organization."

Hendry added the "only real negativity" was Bradley's production (12 HRs, 40 RBIs in 393 at-bats).

This leaves him only with the option of finding some sucker to actually give him more than a cup of coffee for Bradley. If the Cubs fail to find a trade partner for Bradley’s services, they’ll have to cut him and eat the contract.

They could’ve had Adam Dunn for the same salary with less commitment. Dunn has had a great year at the plate hitting nearly 50 points higher than his career batting average and hitting his usual 40 homeruns and 100 or so RBI. Ao they instead signed Bradley who caused problems with the fans, the media and the team all while hitting 12 homers and 40 RBI in nearly 400 at-bats. He embarrassed the franchise, embarrassed his manager and now forced his general manager to eat his contract.

It's sorta like we actually did nail the girlfriend AND we got to give the starting quarterback the atomic wedgie.

All of this while they’re trying to sell the team.

Hilarious.

AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

Do I Really Need To Write A Caption?

What a great day to be a Nats fan and a Cub hater. Taking two-out-of-three from the Cubs has been one of the few bright spots in this season of discontent. Nothing makes misery tolerable quite like company.

The Cubs now stand at one game over .500 – a full nine games behind the Cardinals for the division and 7 ½ games behind Colorado for the wild card. Certainly not an impossible task with 37 games to play, but the way they lost those games and who they lost them to indicates that this team doesn’t have the moxie to pull it off.

J.D. martin was less than sharp yesterday and managed to get out with his hide. Martin allowed three runs (two homeruns) in only five innings of work. The Nats bullpen (that’s right, THE BULLPEN) bailed him out allowing only one run over the last four innings to hang onto the 5-4 win.

The night before, Livan Hernandez (more on him in a moment) allowed only 2 runs in six innings. Speaking of Livan Hernandez, I was on the road for work on Wednesday and had not heard about the acquisition of Hernandez until about a half-hour before game time. What the hell? First the Nats front office states they will NOT acquire veteran free-agent pitchers to supplement the rotation. Not only do they throw that plan out the window, they do it FOR LIVAN HERNANDEZ?!?!?! Should we expect Orlando Hernandez next? Perhaps Bert Blyleven would like to come out of retirement to bolster his Hall of Fame chances? Really? Livan Hernandez? I live in New York and I could’ve SWORN I saw Livan in the line to sign up for social security back in June. I swear it was him.

Tuesday night, Garrett Mock was less than perfect but when you get two homers from Josh Willingham and a grand slam from Elijah Dukes, do you really need to worry?

So the Cubs lost to Mock and Martin who are both still developing and hoping at some point to be major league-caliber pitchers. The only win came in the Livan game and that game may have gone to the Nats if Jorge Sosa (who someday hopes to develop into a major league-caliber bathroom attendant) didn’t allow 5 runs in ONE-THIRD OF AN INNING.

Random thoughts……

Say, you know who’s had a career year?

The Guy On The Right

The photo comes courtesy of Nationals Inquisition who represented at bloggers day and got a photo op with Josh Willingham’s gigantic guns (apparently Dangernat had his tickets to the gun show).

Willingham is hitting 25 points higher than his career average and has 21 homers so far – only five fewer than his career high for a season. If the Nats hadn’t wasted their time with Willingham toiling away on the bench early in the season, just think of how much better they’d be. This team benched him and then when they finally gave him his shot, they asked him to change positions – then after they traded away Nick Johnson and moved Adam Dunn to first, they asked him to switch back. All of this and he never moped, never complained and never publicly blasted the team. Instead, he went about his business and earned the job that probably should’ve been rightfully his to begin with.

If I had disposable income, I’d get me a Nationals “Willingham” jersey because these are the types of players worth rooting for.

F**k The Cubs

This Is The Word Of The Lord

Any journalistic integrity I have or may have had at one time in my life is going completely out the window today: I HATE THE CUBS.

And no, this doesn’t stem from Alfonso Soriano signing with the Cubs after his one ill-fated season with the Nationals. I’ve hated them since I was a teenager. I tuned into WGN (the Chicago Superstation) every day to enjoy watching the Cubs lose.

I never found Harry Caray to be charming, I think Ron Santo sounds like an alcoholic who masturbates during Cub radio broadcasts, I don’t feel bad for Ryne Sandberg or Ernie Banks or Cubs fans. I am contented when the Cubs are the Cubs.

You see, I always found it patently unfair that the Cubs had the right to broadcast their games to a national audience (for that matter, I guess that’s also why I hated the Braves so much) – and why did WGN pick the Cubs? THEY SUCKED! At least the White Sox were interesting; but no, they chose the Cubs.

The fans are terrible. They walk around like it’s their right to a championship and they’re rationale is that they’ve “waited long enough.” Really? I don’t think so.

Some things need to be a certainty; like death, taxes, the sun rising in the east, etc. We had the futility trilogy not too long ago: the Red Sox, the White Sox and the Cubs. Well both Sox are off the hook now and we just have to keep this Cubs thing going. It makes for a great story line and it makes me happy.


So what could make me doubly happy? The Nats really have a chance this week to put a hurtin’ on the Cubs’ post-season chances. The Cubs are currently eight games behind St. Louis in the NL Central and 7 ½ games behind the Rockies for the NL Wild Card (with San Francisco, Atlanta and Florida between the Cubs and Rockies). Plus, the Astros and Brewers are both just two games behind Chicago in the standings and both are below .500 . This could be a great week if only we didn’t face Zambrano and Harden in games one and two. Hopefully Mock and Martin can bring their A-games with them as they have their past few starts – each are 2-1 in their last three.

Please Nats. I haven’t really asked for much during this awful season, but can’t we just win 2-out-of-3 here and keep the cycle of Cub losing going? I plan on living until at least 80 years old and I hope the Cubs never win one in my lifetime. I want to die knowing that for 142 straight years, people lived, people died, people were taxed, people watched the sun rise in the east and set in the west every day and the Cubs still never won a World Series.