If Anyone Else Was Wondering If Jay Mariotti Was Still the Most Clever Writer on the Internet.....

He is.

If Milton Bradley, the old board game company, had a game for Milton Bradley, the baseball malcontent, it surely would be Trouble.

Saying Hello to an Old Friend

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time we revisit a story that was told billions of times already, but hasn't been told in almost a year. A story told by a man who once showed up here quite frequently, and is still allegedly our flagship target. Ladies and gentlemen, please wwwwwwwwwwelcome back.....Jay Mariotti.

Bad Vibes Abound in Friendly Confines

For those of you who don't believe me......

Let's

check

the

FireJay

archives

again

shall

we?

::sniff:: Those were happy times. I sort of miss you, Jay.

CHICAGO -- I'm actually a hopeful guy at heart, confident we'll one day have an economic recovery,

Likely very soon!

peace on earth

Likely not happening!

and better late-night TV from Jimmy Fallon.

The least likely of all!

But my faith in humankind never has extended to the Cubs. Let me lay this out right here: They won't win another World Series in our lifetime or anyone's else,

Interesting. Jay should bet his life savings against the Cubs winning every year and live like a king. But I don't quite understand that sentence. Can you please give me three very random and completely unrelated references to clarify this?

doomed like pork rinds, Vanilla Ice and the last U.S. president as irreversible national debacles.

Thanks.

On a cold, rainy Tuesday, it was Country Music Night at Wrigley Field, the perfect promotion for the saddest ongoing song in sports. Living here, I am sensing more than a smidgen of burnout in Cubdom, a world-weariness that suggests even the most loyal masochists in sports are sick of pledging their entire beings to a cursed cause -- only to be inevitably bludgeoned every autumn.

I stopped reading the second you used the word "cursed". Unfortunately, it seems I already read roughly 89% of those words.

Wasn't there some sort of "curse" on that there Boston baseball team?

Naw, couldn't be. They won the World Series twice recently.

Now, there's a queasy feeling that the Cubs are regressing and might not even make the playoffs this season. They've lost eight of their last nine games, with a rain-shortened 6-1 win over the Pirates finally breaking the streak, and they too often strike the appearance of a sluggish, broken-down, overpriced blob that has overstayed its welcome as a National League contender.

They're four games out of first place on May 31. And they're behind teams that aren't even good.

This begs for a snarling, spitting, belly-bumping tantrum by manager Lou Piniella, who went bonkers in June 2007 and saw the Cubs use it as an emotional turning point in a division-title season.

Jay seems to be of the opinion that the Chicago Cubs won the division in 2007 because Lou Piniella kicked dirt on an umpire. Good for you, Jay.

But here's the rub: His wife, Anita, won't let her hubbie throw bases or fits anymore at 65, which not only is the clubhouse's loss but SportsCenter's, too.

Translation: The Cubs are fux0red.

At 22-22, the Cubs are only four games behind Milwaukee and St. Louis, locked in a first-place tie in the NL Central.

Dan-bob, please explain to the audience what is wrong with this sentence.

But the Cardinals, with Albert Pujols as the resident machine and pitching coach Dave Duncan working more miracles with mediocre arms, are poised for a division-title run.

I'm glad you think that Joel Piniero and Kyle Lohse aren't in for some sort of rude awakening.

The Brewers aren't bad, either, even without C.C. Sabathia.

Actually, they are kind of bad, especially when you consider Rickie Weeks isn't playing anymore. They have four guys hitting the ball acceptably well, and one of them is Craig Counsell, who is totally going to hit .327 all year. Trevor Hoffman will never give up a run, and the team will definitely stay in first place with Manny Parra and Jeff Suppan pitching this awful.

Let me read that sentence again.

The Brewers aren't bad, either, even without C.C. Sabathia.

Wow Jay, you've totally convinced me that you know one thing about the Brewers.

The Cubs are one of baseball's worst offensive teams,

WRONG!

ranking 11th in the league in runs and 14th in batting average and total bases, a far cry from the mashers who powered their way to glory.

Geovany Soto is going to hit .210 all year, and Aramis Ramirez will never come off the disabled list.

One issue is the deterioration of Derrek Lee, who hit 46 home runs four years ago, into a glorified singles hitter. Another issue is Aramis Ramirez, a dangerous hitter who can't stay healthy. Then there's the maddeningly streaky Alfonso Soriano, who is striking out like a fiend and remains misplaced as a leadoff man. The reigning NL Rookie of the Year, catcher Geovany Soto, is hitting .214 with one homer.

There is absolutely no reason to think that any of these players will produce at such a sluggish/disabled rate over an entire season.

Then there's Milton Bradley, who has brought nothing but poison to the Friendly Confines and threatens to spoil the good vibes that have pervaded Wrigley the last two seasons. Only Bradley, who should be accompanied by a shrink 24/7, still can carry a grudge in late May about an umpiring spat that happened on April 16.

Bradley is hitting home runs at a higher rate per plate appearance than he ever has in his career. His OBP is 119 points higher than his batting average. If you think that Milton Bradley is a .224 hitter, then please, by all means, panic.

But, hey, at least Mr. T was there on Monday night, in his red, white and blue get-up and bandana, mucking up the seventh-inning song with the worst of them. You thought Denise Richards was bad? Jeff Gordon, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Romo, Mike Ditka, Dick Vitale? Mr. T brought "PAIN!!!" in the worst way.

See? It isn't all bad!

Sportscaster Says [X] On Air, Later Clarifies That He Didn't Actually Say [X]

I was about to preface this post with a protracted discussion about two massive problems affecting the world of celebrity today. On one hand, almost anything a famous person (even a local baseball broadcaster; I'm counting them as celebrity because they have access to audiences of millions) does can be unfairly and wrongly taken as offensive by nearly any person or group of people. But on the other hand, because celebrities have to half-heartedly apologize for stupid shit all the time, when it comes time for them to either make a legitimate apology or at least own up to something controversial that they said, they're completely unable to do so. Yup, I was going to spend like six paragraphs talking about that subject. But fuck that noise. It was probably bad enough for me to include even that brief summary in the post. Let me just tell you about this thing I heard that I feel is worth mentioning on this blog.

That second problem described above, regarding being unable to either apologize for a legitimately offensive statement or own up to it and defend it as controversial but appropriate, happened two nights ago in Kansas City. Said Royals broadcaster Ryan LeFebvre of visiting Rangers Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley: (quote is pulled off Sportscenter audio and is 100% accurate)

Here's a guy (Hamilton), with all the troubles he's had, has shown that if you work at it you can get your life back in order. And that would be a pretty good role model for Milton Bradley, who clearly has no control over himself, because it's the same thing year after year. This game is... this country, really, if you follow baseball, has really embraced Josh Hamilton. And I think they've wanted to do the same with Milton Bradley. But Milton Bradley has refused to allow himself to be put in that position.

Now, let me add a brief but obvious disclaimer before I come to my long overdue conclusion: I'm not here to defend Milton Bradley. As far as pro athletes go, he seems like a grade-A shithead. He's done almost nothing in his career to convince me that he's not an awful teammate. I'm not sure what kind of person he is outside of baseball, but if the hotheadedness he shows there translates over to his personal life (and fairly or not, I assume it does to some extent), he's probably not a great guy to hang around with.

There, I'm done. That was mean, wasn't it? Sure. But I'll stand by it. I'd say it to Bradley's face, as long as there was someone in the room to prevent him from beating me mercilessly. And that's what make me different than Ryan LeFebvre, because according to Sportscenter, you know what he said about those comments when later asked about them? Apparently he "wasn't singling out Bradley" and "wasn't ripping him."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Read the original monolouge again, and let me know if I'm taking crazy pills here. Is that not the very definition of singling someone out, and, although not very maliciously, also close to the definition of ripping someone? Now you probably see why I wanted to write that intro. And now we come full circle to the end of the most cumbersome post in this (or maybe any) blog's existence. LeFebvre, in my mind, had two options once what he said became an issue and required further comment:

He could have A) apologized to Bradley and said he didn't mean to come across so harsh or without provocation. He didn't have to do this, of course. His original comments weren't really harsh enough to warrant it. But had he wanted to, he could have apologized, and it wouldn't have been weird or anything.

OR, he could have B) owned up to what he said and reaffirmed it. He could have simply said he was stating his opinion on the matter based on everything he's ever seen out of Bradley, and that while it's not the end of the world, it seems like Bradley is a troubled guy with some anger issues. There, that's not that hard, is it? Although it might have the fallout of causing Bradley to follow LeFebvre to his car one night and cave in LeFebvre's head with a bat, it's still an acceptable way to respond to the situation.

Is it really that hard to do one of those two things? Apparently so, because instead of either of them LeFebvre just decided to punk out and tell a bald-faced lie to a scandalously interested national audience. "Hey, I know I was singling out Milton Bradley and kind of ripping him, but I want you all to know that I wasn't singling him out or ripping him. Just thought I'd clear the air on that." OK, buddy. Whatever you say. Jeebus- give me a fucking break. What is this world coming to?

I know, I know, this post stinks. Sorry. Listen, all I ask is that if you leave a comment telling me this post sucks, and later on someone asks you "Hey, didn't you tell Larry B earlier today that his post stunk?", don't deny it.

Alert! There's Been Sightings of Bad Analogies, Bad Jokes, and WRONG!

Scott Miller

Pads' 'Operation' needs Milton Bradley's skills, not his games

Boo! Get off the Stage!

Hey, didn't you hear? Coco Crisp's name sounds like he should be a breakfast food! Yo Crisp! The Red Sox need your skills, not your cereal!

SAN DIEGO -- That Milton Bradley was quietly working a USA Today crossword puzzle at his locker before the start of this week's key NL West series with Arizona is perfect in that six years and five organizations into his major-league career, he remains unsolved and far from completely filled in.

God that's bad. But what if Bradley's a pretty smart dude and had that crossword filled in? I bet he did!

Unfulfilled talent? Troublemaker? Still maturing? Misunderstood?

All of the above?

The hardball Life and Times of Milton Bradley, usually located straddling Sorry! and Ants in the Pants, has moved two spaces, and now it's San Diego that is rolling the dice.

ZOMG! It's almost as if there's some sort of corporation that manufactured those things, and Bradley's name is somehow connected to it!

Even in their Tim Hudson-Jason Giambi-Miguel Tejada heyday, Oakland never advanced to the ALCS. With Bradley last year, they did.

Milton Bradley, 2006 ALDS: 1-13, 1 HR. That HR was a 2-run homer in an 8-3 win. Thank God for Milton fucking Bradley, without whom the A's might never have broken that stupid curse.

"One guy really can make a difference in the lineup," Padres shortstop Khalil Greene says. "Look at Philadelphia with Chase Utley. When he's in the lineup, it changes everything."

I really hope Khalil Greene doesn't think Milton Bradley has anywhere near the same influence as Chase Utley. Like, I really, really hope not. Even given Bradley's awesome last 100 ABs, that's crap.

Since they acquired him from Oakland on June 29, when he's been in the lineup, the switch-hitting Bradley has been to the San Diego lineup -- a lineup that ranks 15th in the NL in on-base percentage, 15th in batting average and 12th in runs scored -- what a hydraulic car lift is for an auto mechanic.

Wow. There you have it. Milton Bradley:Padres :: hydraulic car lift:auto mechanic

Weak. I mean not that it doesn't make sense or anything, it's just wordy and stupid. Tell ya what. In the comments section, leave behind an analogy in the following form.

Milton Bradley:Padres :: (thing):(profession)

Most creative analogy gets my personal thumbs up.