Cubs of Yore: Milton Bradley

Name: Milton Obelle Bradley

Nicknames: Admiral Fuckstick, Ol' Shit-Ass, Dickbag, Dr. Blumpkin, Milty

Media Guide Year: 2009

Position: RF

Acquired: Signed to a 3 year/$30M contract that greatly helped Jim Hendry's reputation drop straight into  the toilet.

Random Write-Up: Remember riding high the day Ted Lilly and the Cubs beat the Cardinals on a beautiful day at Wrigley to clinch the division in 2008? Say what you will about playoff collapses, but this is where the wheels really fell off. Even coming off an All Star season and a .321 average, there was a pervasive feeling that this was NOT going to end well. I'm not saying that we needed to keep Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood around with that money, but I am saying that he eventual blowup wouldn't have been nearly as bad, nor as tinged with accusations of racism. 2009 was the fucking Challenger of the modern-era Cubs.

After his prolonged slump to begin the season, Milton Bradley decided that the reason he wasn't performing was because of pervasive racism in the Cubs fan base. Incredibly, Steve Rosenbloom, Alpha-Douche of the Chicago Media, decided this was his pot to stir, and proceeded to do so in the shittiest manner possible, bringing up names like Dusty Baker and Juan Pierre in the process. Now I've never heard the N-word at Wrigley, but I've only been to 100-something games, so maybe small sample size. The insane part isn't that Bradley threw that card, it's that the media, and to an extent the fans allowed themselves to be sucked into his bipolar whirlpool for the better part of two weeks.

So he left under circumstances that left him envying Todd Hundley, got arrested again on domestic violence charges, and we were left to ponder whether we were really turning a blind eye to racism or whether we perhaps put too much trust in a sniveling little faux-Mariotti and a man who inspired the TMZ headline "Ex-Dodger Bradley: I Never Threatened to Kill My Wife."

I'm not saying that the Chicago sports media is reactionary and easily manipulated. I'm just saying that they put a lot of stock in the word of a man whose wife accused him of swinging a bat at her. His failure to make contact just backs her story up even more. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned among all this humorous head-shaking at the 2009 disaster.

Also of Note: Was responsible for most baseball fans learning the term "Restricted List," which really paved the way for all the whackadoo nutbags of today to grab an extra headline while their lives spiral out of control.