Chicago Cubs Baseball

Some people just can’t let go.  Or turn the page.  Or find enough intestinal strength to pick up the needle and move it to another groove.

Ex-Chicago Cub outfielder Milton Bradley is one of those such persons.

Barely pitches into the 2010 spring training schedule, Bradley put on his best - or worst - jilted lover face to give his former team some offensive shots he obviously couldn’t deliver while wearing a Cubs uniform.

In an interview with the New York Times last week, Bradley touched on his new team’s - the Seattle Mariners - 2010 potential.  But not without re-opening some of the wounds most fans of Chicago Cubs baseball would just as soon forget.

But that’s one of the many differences between the Chicago Cubs and Milton Bradley.  The Cubs and its fans have had over 100 years of practice of letting the past quietly pass. Evidently, for Bradley, eight different teams in 11 years is still part of his bitter learning curve.

Bradley’s arrival to Chicago and subsequently too long of a stay, was brought about by the Cubs need for a left-handed bat, and Bradley’s desire for that fat three-year, $30 million contract.  For better or worse (and the answer is now clear to all), it was the business of baseball at work.

And the world of baseball knew it was an ill fit, a mismatch, even before the ink on the contract had dried.  Everyone with a lick of common baseball sense - with the exception of Cubs’ general manager Jim Hendry and Bradley, knew this was neither a match made in heaven nor conceived in the bowels of hell.   It was simply a transaction that never should have taken place.

Milton Bradley is a big time bat for a small to medium baseball market.  But as his track record shows he’s not nor ever will be a ready-for-prime-time player.  Not for Chicago, not for New York or anywhere else where it demands a cool head and steady play on the big stage and the bright lights that accompany it.

He’s simply not wired that way.

Hopefully, last week’s comments will be the last from Bradley on the Chicago Cubs.  Hopefully, he’ll find the right tutelage with Ken Griffey Jr. and some inner peace with his new team - Texas Rangers North.