First off, I do not condone umpires provoking players into a verbal (nearly physical) confrontation on or off the field, but I found a strange type of justice occur when Mike Winters and Milton Bradley went at it at first base during the Padres lost on Sunday to the Rockies. The story began apparently when Winters felt that Bradley threw his bat down the first base line in protest after being called out on a check swing third strike. Knowing that Bradley is a hot head, Winters appears to provoke him into a tirade to the point that Bradley needed to be restrained by his manager, Bud Black. In the process of being restrained, Bradley's knee gave out and he tore his ACL. We all know that Milton Bradley has serious anger issues, but I couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that his anger let to a season ending injury.
I know that he should not have been provoked and it was an unprofessional move by the umpire, but how do you combat a lack of professionalism? With and extraordinary amount of professionalism. That is what we, as umpires, are suppose to exhibit when we are dealing with coaches or players, and the expectations for players and coaches should be the same when facing an unprofessional umpire.
Either way, I just found it kind of fitting way for the most volitile player in baseball to go down with an injury: completely losing his top.
Monday, September 24, 2007
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