FanPost

Uncle Milty

[editor's note, by Phantom] Updated below. Right, so this diary and incident need no introduction. But, this is probably not what you're expecting me to say.

Fact is, something clearly happened between Winters, Bradley, Black, Meacham, and Runge. There was a whole lot of yapping going on between everyone. If you watch the replay, when Bradley first gets to first, it looks like he asks Winters a really innocent question, which Winters attempts to answer. However, as the Kouz at-bat goes on, things escalate, until Bradley calls for time and is immediately tossed.

Unlike almost everybdoy else on here, I'm not going to bury Bradley. Something clearly set him off. After Bradley went down, even Meacham, usually an even-keel cat, was f'ing furious. I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of speculation on this, and a bunch of stuff will come out tomorrow morning.

Could Bradley have handled the situation differently? Obviously. But let's not assume that this was an unprovoked action. I don't want to hear the whole "they're professional baseball players" crap. They're human beings like the rest of us. They screw up like the rest of us. Since he's been here, Milty hasn't done anything this volatile. Something clearly happened today that we'll probably never get the full story about. Am I bummed about his ejection and this display? Sure. But if something horrible happened (perhaps some kind of racial-based comment?), then Bradley should have exploded. That's unforgivable in 2007.

So, for better or worse, I'm with Milton Bradley. He cares about winning and he wants nothing more than to make the playoffs. Should he have handled this situation differently? Yes. Could I have if I were in his position?

We'll never know.

From the Padres.com article:

Meacham said after the game that Bradley did nothing to warrant the ejection or, in his opinion, the tone and the choice of words that Winters reportedly used.

"In 26 years of baseball, I couldn't believe my ears the way that he spoke to Milton was so disrespectful, so angry, so vindictive," Meacham said. "It was weird. The boiling point is when he called Milton a name. Milton did not saying anything to him to get him to do that."

This FanPost was written by a member of the Gaslamp Ball community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gaslamp Ball staff or SB Nation.