Former MLB outfielder Milton Bradley has reportedly been sentenced to almost three years in jail and 400 hours of community service for abuse of his estranged wife.
The Associated Press, per CBS Sports’ Matt Snyder, has some of the details of his crimes:
Prosecutors say Bradley threatened and attacked his wife five times in 2011 and 2012. In one incident, Bradley pushed his wife against a wall and choked her after she asked him to stop smoking marijuana in front of their children and wanted his friends to leave their home.
According to ABC News, he was found guilty of nine misdemeanor counts, including four for spousal battery and one for assault with a deadly weapon. He is currently free on $250,000 bond but is due back in court next month.
Anger isn’t exactly a new defining characteristic for the former talented-yet-controversial ballplayer.
In June of 2004, after being ejected from the game for arguing balls and strikes, he responded by returning to the dugout and throwing a bag of baseballs onto the field, thus resulting in a four-game suspension.
In September of 2007, he tore his right ACL while arguing with umpire Mike Winters, an untimely injury that seriously hindered the San Diego Padres’ postseason hopes.
Those are the two incidents that likely initially stick out in the heads of most people, but he constantly made headlines for altercations with players, managers, fans and umpires alike. He broke bats on his knee, gave “the finger,” threw objects into the stands, and was seemingly always in trouble with the league.
Bradley has always had talent. He led the league in both on-base percentage and OPS during an All-Star season with the Texas Rangers in 2008, and he delivered other productive (albeit, usually short) stints with the Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers and Cleveland Indians.
Sadly, his anger always got the best of him, leading to on- and off-the-field antics that were, in the end, always simply too much for teams to put up with.
Although it’s too late for the 35-year-old to return to professional baseball, hopefully (for the sake of both him and his family,) jail time and community service can serve as an avenue to help get his life back on track.
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