Padres Baseball Star Milton Bradley Is Out: Did This Black Man Get A Raw Deal Or Is He Just Another Whining Brother?

By Jayar Jackson

Milton Bradley of the San Diego Padres will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. With one week left in the season and San Diego in a close playoff race against the Philadelphia Phillies, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. Baseball is a risky sport sometimes, with all the sliding into bases, balls flying at players’ heads, and outfielders colliding with the wall or each other.

Bradley was involved in one such collision in the Padres’ 7-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, but his season ending injury came after he safely made it to 1st base in the 8th inning.

While jawing back and forth with first base umpire Mike Winters, Bradley decided to call time and get into the face of Winters, like most baseball managers do to prove a point. The commissioner's office said Monday it is investigating whether the volatile Bradley was baited by Winters.

Their confrontation actually began in the 5th inning when Bradley struck out, watching a pitch. Home plate umpire Brian Runge asked Bradley if he had flipped his bat in the ump's direction after taking the called third strike to end the inning. Runge indicated that the first base ump told him that Bradley had, which he disputed. Bradley has gotten in trouble for this very same offense in 2003 with another umpire, so these actions seemed to be in his blood.

Upon comfortably arriving at 1st base with both of his knee ligaments intact 3 innings later, he asked Winters if he told Runge he threw his bat. Padres’ first base coach said that Winters used profanity towards Bradley right before the blowup that could not be printed.

"You guys couldn't print it,” the manager told reporters in San Francisco. “In this situation, it escalated to a point where some things shouldn't have been said. I didn't hear what Mike said. My understanding is ... they were profane.”

During the scuffle and attempts to restrain the outfielder with a reputation for completely losing his temper, Bud Black, his own manager, accidentally wrestled his knee into the very uncomfortable position that tore the ligament in question. Black said, "He's a very strong guy. My thought was, 'I've got to do everything I can to keep Milton away from any confrontation because if he gets suspended it's going to cost us games.” Ironically, his motivation behind getting involved caused Bradley to not get suspended, but miss the end of the season anyway.

Taking Bradley’s history for losing his cool into consideration, this apparent lack of professionalism from the umpire may go unpunished. While some players get a bad reputation for their temper while in the heat of competition, it’s even more essential for the umpires to be held to a higher standard in determining the outcome of games.

Needless to say, Bradley was not happy with the way the ordeal turned out calling Winters’ actions “the most unprofessional and most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.” “It's terrible. And now, because of him, my knee's hurt,” Bradley said Sunday. “If this costs me my season because of that, he needs to be reprimanded. I'm taking some action. I'm not going to stand pat and accept this.”