Bradley's emotional baggage makes me think that he externalizes his emotional fire in the form of injury. His attention-getting behavior does two things. It makes players and fans think, "what's wrong," first and then they see he's okay. His acts of "crying wolf" have grown old with previous team-mates. He couldn't be in a more supportive environment in Oakland.

   Kotsay's comments to the press reveal that players are aware of his thin skin, and were actually upset at Baltimore management for not stoppping the chirping from the crowd. Players appear to still support him and rightfully so. His previous charges of bigotted teammates hasn't surfaced nor will it.

   Milton Bradley remains an immature athlete who has great talent. As long as he doesn't start blaming the A's front office for his issues, his "act" will continue to be tolerated. This team needs his kind of productivity. If Beane can replace him, I suggest sooner than later, before he becomes untradeable.

The fact that it's 'magically, out of nowhere, a problem' just strikes me as way too odd of a problem. Shit like that needs some kind of buildup.

Yes, no teammate is gonna call out their guy publically, but I seriously question whether the situation is absolutely dire and horrible, as this makes it sound.

Bizarre.

It's about time!!! I have been waiting for someone to return Derek Lowe's favor!!!

Red Sock fans are the most venomous and filthy trash talking jerks in all of baseball!!!

Boston is also a very racist town, I wonder what was said to Milt?

As far as his "antics", it is obvious to me that Urban is really full of himself.

Has he ever played baseball beyong Little league?

Has he ever tweaked something that is a MAJOR PROBLEM and then been ready to go in 5 minutes?

I was warming up last week and felt a tweek in my left knee that sent me to the ground. It was my MCL ripping a bit because I caught a spike.

I couldn't stand on it for two minutes.

I got up, walked it off, put on my catcher's gear and caught 9.

This article makes Susan Slusser look like George Plimpton!!!

I hope that Urban gets 10 times the heat for this garbage than Sluss did for printing that Swish likes a good party!!!

Urban hasn't shown us to be the guy to right about flippant topics, so if he says there is an issue, I kind of believe him.

I think all of us here don't want to hear what he has to say, because it isn't good. We can only hope things somehow smooth over, but history would suggest it's probably going to get worse.

That said, this is the second time he's struck me trying to stir up stuff in the clubhouse without justification. Last year in his interview with Blez, he called out Joe Kennedy, saying, "Kennedy doesn't fit in with this team at all. Think a blonde Mark Redman. I'll leave it at that."

Sure, I appreciate his candor, but I don't think he should be gossiping in a forum that will be read in the clubhouse. I'd prefer that he report the actual news and let the stuff that needs interpreting - as in whether Kennedy fits in or Bradley's teammates are "tired of his act" - be done elsewhere.  

1. Yes, he was a good teammate throughout the Spring and while injured.
2. BUT, he has issues. And sometimes those issues just demand too much of everybody's time and attention. So players go from, "He's fiery" to "That's Milton being Milton" to (eventually) "Fuck, dude, everything doesn't have to be about you" or "Fuck, dude, everything doesn't have to be a problem."

1. Bradley did hurt his shoulder throwing something in the clubhouse (I know this one is true from a completely realiable source on the medical staff).
2. Bradley makes Swisher getting hit kind of about him. There's fire and then there's a guy so self-centered who soaks up a lot of energy better spent focused on winning.
3. And now yesterday, where he just can't let it go, where he has to stare down fans, where he's carried off the field only to return and play. Again, he's soaking up a lot of the team's energy that would be better spent elsewhere.

Look, I want to like the guy and I do. I want the A's to win and I think he gives them there best chance.

But if you're looking for an explanation of what the problem might be, I think this is it.

There's a reason Coletti was so quick to dump Milton for a young and (then) unproven player even though the Dodgers had a real shot in the here an now. He didn't have a secret crystal ball telling him about Ethier. No, he had everybody else telling him "to get this cancer off the team."

We have to hope he's changed. And based on the evidence of this last week, sorry to say it, but things aren't looking good.

Urban writes the most negative article on the A's, by someone not named Ratto, in 10 Years.

"So the fans let him have it, and rightly so."

Who's side are you on!?!?!

You think that Milton should be negatively blasted, but you cannot handle A's fans on an A's board writing passionately about thier team?!?!

Now, THAT, is WEAK!!!

Or was he playing left...Left OUT???

Then, Bradley comes back from the DL and adds spark to the team and comes up with bat, and this article is written.

Or was this mentioned already somewhere up there and I just missed it?

Just a possibility, I know.

All i know is that players publicly acknowledge that they like Milton Bradley and what he brings, and that Milton Bradley was the only one actively backing up Swisher when he got hit by Schilling.

I usually like Urbans work. I hope he's not stirring the shit cause Bradley dissed him and now he's butt-hurt.

Does anybody know of a quick way to access it? If you could post a link, I'd be much abliged.

1. Urban is auditioning for a regular columnist job at the Ex. They've just hired Glenn Dickey for three days a week, and they could have put the word out they're looking for someone else. Moving from mlb.com to a regular column on a daily paper would be a step up as a journalist, and what better way than to out-Ratto Ray Ratto?
2. This isn't Mychael Urban so much as Billy Beane firing a warning shot to Milton Bradley's agent. Consider the source: an A's insider who works for mlb.com (where he could be replaced at any time) writes an article bordering on libel against a specific A's player. Why now? Unless it is an audition piece (and it's in my view a little too personal to be one), there's no point in writing it, particularly since the A's are playing better ball and Milton is raking.

Urban takes the current situations in Boston and Baltimore, talks to a few players who roll their eyes at Bradley's antics, and then writes a column that reveals this while also drawing some yet to be realized conclusions (Bradley has cracked, hewill doom the team, his teammates have had enough).

This is basically what many, many columnists do. It's not too overboard.

I wonder if we at AN are reacting the way we do because we're scared shitless. Because we're afraid that this team, which seems to be fragile in so many ways, is now maybe fragile in this way, too.

It would be nice to have three straight days of good news wouldn't it. Days where Bradley talks to the press and says the right things. Days where the word on Harden and Kennedy is that they're both much improved. Days where Chavy stops hanging his fricking head and telling us all, "It's just not there."

Yeah, that would be nice.

A's general manager Billy Beane has made a mint in public-speaking engagements since the best-seller "Moneyball" chronicled his ability to take advantage of undervalued area in the baseball talent market and turned him into a star in the business world.

When the book was being written, what was being undervalued was on-base percentage, and Beane exploited the market weakness by loading up. Now that Beane's success has increased the value of OBP, he's looking for weaknesses elsewhere, and what he's apparently discovered is that so-called "problem players" are undervalued.

So he's stocked up on them, and today the A's are in first place in the American League West. Tough to quibble with ongoing success, right?

Wrong. One of Beane's problem players in Milton Bradley, and he's becoming a bigger problem by the day. And if the problem isn't nipped in the bud, the A's won't be in first place much longer.

Bradley, as everyone knows, came to Oakland with more baggage that a trans-Atlantic luxury liner. He'd fought with teammates, managers and his wife, and he'd had run-ins with the law and fans.

Not big deal, Beane told everyone. The cohesive A's clubhouse was strong enough to absorb Bradley, warts and all.

Bradley himself told us he was simply understood. That he's not as much of a bad boy as his reputation suggests. That he was more approachable than he seems.

Both men were wrong. Dead wrong.

Bradley has five-tool talent, which is what enticed Beane into trading away his top outfield prospect, Andre Ethier, to get him. But he also has about seven screws loose.

Until last Saturday, Bradley had been on his best behavior. Of course, it's easy to behave when you're on the disabled list, which is where Bradley has been for most of the year. And really, Bradley's best behavior wasn't all that great. In his first radio interview after the trade that brought him to Oakland, he asked the Bay Area to give him a chance. But on the first day of spring training, when reporters put his I'm-more-approachable-than-I seem claim to the test, he failed miserably, refusing to talk.

And then came Saturday in Boston. On Friday he came off the disabled list and put on the kind of show Beane bargained for, going 4-for-5 and making a sensational catch. On Saturday he snapped. After screaming at Red Sox blowhard Curt Schilling for drilling Nick Swisher, Bradley turned his attention toward the fans behind the visitors' dugout. There was much shouting and finger-pointing, and the next time Bradley came off the field, he subtly saluted said fans by grabbing his crotch.

A's manager Ken Macha didn't play him the next day, offering the lame reasoning that Bradley had been on the bases so much Friday that he needed to give his legs a rest. The truth is that Macha didn't want Bradley to have to deal with the Boston fans again. He knew he couldn't handle it.

So on the A's moved to Baltimore, where the Orioles fans aren't exactly known for being harsh. But they certainly got under Bradley's skin, and Bradley gave them plenty of material with one of the weakest acts seen since the World Cup ended.

After stumbling while rounding first base on Wednesday, Bradley appeared to be injured, and badly. So pronounced was his limp that he that he didn't even try to get back to the base, so the throw from the outfield to shortstop to first base got there in plenty of time for Bradley to be tagged out.

As he was being carried off the field, it looked like Bradley was headed for another stint on the DL. But no. There must have been some kind of medical magician in the dugout, because Bradley was back out on defense the next inning, even diving for a ball at one point.

So the fans let him have it, and rightly so. But Bradley, unlike hundreds of big-league ballplayers everywhere, couldn't ignore their taunts. He might have the biggest rabbit ears in the game. So he jawed with them for two full innings, complaining to the umpires that security wasn't doing its job.

It put a huge damper on a nice win for the A's, and while none of his teammates would go on the record (nor would Bradley, who didn't talk after the Boston game, either), it was clear that they have tired of Bradley's act.

They've also tired of Macha playing the role of enabler. If he had any stones, he'd have undressed Bradley in his office after the game and told him to knock it off or get used to the bench. Instead, Macha basically threw up his hands, and for a manager with a tepid approval rate in the clubhouse as it is, it was a very bad move.

Beane is a very good GM, but he swung and missed big with Bradley -- Ethier is batting .340 for the Dodgers, while Bradley is batting .249 and causing headaches. So it's on Beane to do what Macha should have done and sit Bradley down.

For a guy who's so big on track records, it's puzzling why Beane would ignore Bradley's. It was never a matter of "if" regarding blowup. It was "when?"

And when is now.

but see. it's real important you were at least, almost a pro-baller. because now you get that acceptance in the club house. like yeah, i played some ball in school, then for a minor league club in san jose. because that means you're on the same level, as far as balling and the big ball lifestyle, as the real deal ballers: you know where they're coming from. that is his currency: almost a baller. more than most of us can say.

what does it all mean? NOTHING? Urban is a dude that was almost a pro baller, but instead is a minor league beat reporter. the only thing he KNOWS about the A's or baseball more than the average, smart, dedicated fan comes from this thin cache of almost having been a big time baller.

this is what he thinks about his readers: they don't really understand the game or have valid opinions about their team. but whereas others who hold this viewpoint, people like say Joe Morgan, he is not in any posotion to teach us un-enlightened masses anything about the game, because you see, he doesn't know much more about what transpires on the field than you or i. outside of the clubhouse drivel that has inspired the above 200+ comments he has little more insight about the fundamentals of the club than CHIEF BLOWHARD Garry Radnich. at least radnich has a sense of humor about himself and his position. urban is on an upward career trajectory. he is on the MLB payroll and soon ESPN. he is a very succesful person. but he will always just be a non-baller. he can only really report. so, he reports a bunch of junk. like that's what we all need more of in our lives: some useless sh*t.

DEAR MYKE URBAN: PLEASE, just stick to the game wrapups and fluff profile pieces. keep your bitter almost a baller 'tude to yourself.