Game Over for Milton Bradley

Don't want to say "we told you so," but we suspected the Cubs would be sorry when they signed Milton Bradkey to a three year, $30 million free agent contract during the off-season. Seems management has finally reached their breaking point with the outfielder before he finished even one season in Chicago, suspending him for the remainder of the season.

"The last few days became too much for me to tolerate," Cubs GM Jim Hendry said. "I'm certainly not going to let our great fans become excuses," Hendry said. "I'm not going to tolerate [Bradley] not being able to answer questions from the media respectably." Certainly when he's only hitting .257 with 12 homers and 40 RBIs.

Hendry was alluding to a couple of controversies that have plagued the volatile Bradley. In June, manager Lou Piniella and Bradley got into a shouting match before a game against the White Sox at The Cell. A couple weeks ago, Bradley accused Cubs fans of being racist because they were taunting him. More recently, he refused to answer questions from the media after a game in which he took himself out for no apparent reason. The final straw may have been how he publically expressed his unhappiness during his time on the North Side, telling The Daily Heralds' Bruce Miles,

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.

Teammates showed little sympathy for Bradley. Ryan Dempster said, "Sometimes you've just got to look in the mirror and realize that maybe the biggest part of the problem is yourself and (not) wanting to be here and play every day, and (not) wanting to have some fun." Others, including Aramis Ramirez and Derrick Lee believed that Hendry made the right call.

Said Bradley to Miles, "you understand why they haven't won in 100 years here." We do... it's because they waste money signing players like Bradley [Ed's Note: And other underperformers like Kevin Gregg but I digress... - M.G.] It'll be interesting to see how Cubs management proceeds. We're pretty certain we've seen the last of Milton Bradley in Cubbie blue. At this point, it seems doubtful the team will be able to trade Bradley and his attitude, so they may have to simply eat the remaining $20 million balance of his contract to rid themselves of a clubhouse cancer.