"White people never want to see race -- with anything. But there's race involved in baseball. That's why there's less than 9 percent African-American representation in the game. I'm one of the few African-Americans that starts here." -- Milton Bradley
It will be tempting to dismiss Bradley's above comments as Milton being Milton, and I would tend to agree -- but I don't mean that in a negative way. From what I've known of Milton Bradley over the past year or so, he is nothing but unflinchingly honest. You might not agree with what he's saying, but you should at least pay attention.
He and fellow Dodger Jeff Kent had a disagreement this past weekend when Bradley failed to score from first on Kent's double, costing Kent an RBI but not affecting the outcome of the game, and Bradley spoke about the conflict at length before Tuesday night's game.
Bradley tossed some kerosene on a fire that seemed to be burning out when he opined that Kent doesn't know how to deal with African-Americans, and Kent predictably took offense.
As someone once said, what we've got here is a failure to communicate. Although it's been reported that Bradley has handled this particular situation calmly and smoothly, he has shown a tendency to respond emotionally. Kent, meanwhile, is notorious for being one of the worst teammates around. A conflict between these two should've been expected, but something good might come out of this.
There's almost certainly some truth to what Bradley is saying about the game. Since the percentage of black players in the majors has been on a steady decline over the past few decades, it shouldn't be surprizing that current black players might encounter varying degrees of prejudice while playing a game that's become increasingly dominated by whites and Latinos. The only way to address this problem is to bring it into the light, something that Bradley's comments, inflammatory as they may be, just might accomplish.
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