Update: The headline on the cubs.com story on the latest Milton Bradley blowup?

"Cubs putting Bradley in the past"

Really? Read on...

Original post: Who in the hell is handling media relations for the Cubs these days?

They deserve to be fired if they haven't told Jim Hendry, Ryan Dempster and company to stop answering questions about Milton Bradley.

Here's what Hendry had to say today, after Bradley's latest comments on the difficulty of PWB (playing while black) at Wrigley Field:

"We're all brought up in life to accept responsibility when we fail, and to judge people by how they act and how they carry themselves when things don't go well," Hendry said. ...

(click "read more" for full article)

"Obviously, that couldn't be further from the truth," Hendry said. "I think maybe it's time Milton looks at himself in the mirror. It is what it is. He just didn't swing the bat. He didn't get the job done. His production, or lack of (production), was the only negative." ...

"We have a lot of players from a lot of countries and a lot of nationalities that love playing here," Hendry said. "I think it's the total (cop-out) when you don't perform up to the expectations that are expected of you, (then) blame it on a variety of different excuses."

"We have a long history of quality people that want to play here, and I don't believe in the last seven or eight years under this regime we've lost a free agent player that we wanted to keep," he said. "And that's still the case. We just heard (in the media) from Aramis (Ramirez) and Derrek Lee the other day how strongly they would like to end their careers here. I do find it ironic, too, that if there was any truth to any of the things that are coming up now about (the difficulties of playing at Wrigley Field),

"I'd like to think that Kevin Millar and Marlon Byrd, who are represented by the same firm, the Levinsons... I don't think they would've been dying to have their clients come here. Ithink Kevin and Marlon will both tell you we were clearly their first choice. It's really unfortunate you get to that situation (and) deflect the lack of production you did in the year you were here, and t6hen try to use the other areas for excuses."

"I think we've all done our best to move on," Hendry said. "We've got a great bunch of guys here and a really quality thing going in our clubhouse and our organization. We thought we helped Milton move on too, by putting him in another place. And that's how we approach it.

"It's time to go about our business. Obviously, it was a one-year situation that I brought him in here to try and help us from the left side. Obviously it was a mistake and he didn't get the job done. You move on from your mistakes and you make life better for both sides, and that's what we did."

Whoa. But Jim, you are in no way moving on when you continue to take the bait and answer questions about Bradley. Stop. Answering. The. Questions. As we've mentioned before.

It doesn't matter if Paul Sullivan asks you about Milton Bradley every 47 seconds. It doesn't matter what the question is. Ever. The answer always is "We're focused on this year's team and moving forward. There's no sense in dwelling on the past."

That's something Lou Piniella clearly understands:

Piniella said he didn't know "why we keep re-visiting these things," and declined to get into a war of words with Bradley.

"I guess we can talk about the Los Angeles Lakers, we can talk about the Chicago Bears and the players they got," he said. "I think we let this subject go and concentrate on what we have here, and not re-visit it any more. I don't think there's any need to."

How hard was that? For the love of God stop giving Sullivan things to write about. Be boring. Stop talking about 2009. It's a simple rule. Really.

Comments (7)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment