Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Ignoring Rosenbloom’s cherry-picked examples, exaggerations and blatant misinformation, Bradley’s personal issues are indeed worth addressing. In 2004 he had a confrontation with a fan after having a water bottle thrown at him on the field, for which he received a five-game suspension. Already, he was being singled out as problematic–he also got four games for throwing a bag of balls onto the field, a penalty not usually seen for similar infractions. The following year, he was widely cast as a malcontent for accusing Dodgers teammate Jeff Kent of racism, despite the fact that Kent’s attitude had come under question before. In 2007 his year was cut short in bizarre fashion during an incident for which umpire Mike Winters was subsequently suspended by the league.
Second–and it’s odd that this should be the second point–the man is a tremendous baseball player. Unimpressed as Rosenbloom is by his credentials, Bradley was by some measures the best offensive player in the American League last season. His OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) was highest in the league; he was also tops in batting runs and batting wins. When healthy, he’s shown good range at both corner outfield positions. Perhaps most importantly, his arrival lets Kosuke Fukudome shift to center, where he’ll face less pressure to put up big offensive numbers. Fukudome had a great start to his big-league career before tanking in the second half; in center, he’ll split time with Reed Johnson, hopefully leaving him with something come August.
