He’s a friend of Milton Bradley

We always knew Milton Bradley did not exist in a friendless vacuum, where the routine was the suspicion-filled Cubs outfielder against most of the rest of the world.

No, beyond the hatred and implied racism Bradley said he felt in Chicago, beyond the waiters who’d diss him at the next table, beyond the Cubs teammates who admitted to others the clubhouse chemistry was much better with the exiled Mark DeRosa, is a certified buddy. He might not be the only one, but for now, let’s hear from Dodgers pitcher Jeff Weaver how you become a friend of Bradley.

“For me, we kind of have similar personalities,” Weaver said. Yeah — a record of volatility. Like Bradley, Weaver had several scrapes on the field. When he nailed then-White Sox Carlos Lee with a pitch in a 2000 game at U.S. Cellular Field, he touched of a dandy of a brawl between the Sox and Weaver’s Tigers which spread all over the field in multiple rasslin’ matches. Seemingly taking advantage of his tough-guy reputation, Weaver served as a guest bouncer on the Jerry Springer Show not long after the brawl.

He’s southern California-born and -bred like Bradley. But this duo broke the region’s laid-back mold. Weaver figures their mutual roots in the same area forged a bond, which was cemented when he and Bradley were Dodgers teammates in 2004-05.

“You get on the field, and you’re highly competitive, highly emotional,” Weaver said.  “Sometimes things get the best of you. That’s because you care. Milton cares. He believes he should do well at all times. He believes he should help the team win. Competitiveness is in his blood.”

Weaver insists the Bradley who operates out of the public eye is not the same as the public, controversial guy.

“With all the high energy and emotions through the course of the game, when you’re off the field, you can be a totally different person,” he said. “He’s very calm, collected, very thoughtful, and a good family man. He’s someone you can sit and talk to about the game you’ve just played or anything that’s going on in your life itself. He cares about his teammates. He wants everyone to do well.  Somebody you definitely want on your team.”

“A lot of situations come up where the media and public see things a different way than what you might think you’re doing as an individual. Sometimes that gets twisted a little bit. Overall, he’s a guy who cares and he’s somebody you can depend on.”

Bradley created enough of a firestorm with his words as a Cub, on top of forgetting how many outs were in an inning and getting run out of the ballpark by Lou Piniella after he roughed up the dugout. He was even more off-the-wall as a Dodger, ranging from slamming a bottle tossed onto the field back at a fan to calling an African-American beat writer an “Uncle Tom.”

“It could have just been that point in time,” Weaver said of Bradley’s LA days. “When I first came up, I took things a little too personally at times. You live and learn as you go through experiences. In the end you hope it makes you a better person. Over time, you understand how to handle situations differently. Not be as confrontational and let things roll off a little easier than when you were younger. We all mature as we get older. He was young and wanted to make his place. Sometimes things go awry.”

Weaver obviously spoke of an ideal for which Bradley apparently has reached,  but obviously still has not achieved. He had to know about the pressure of the Cubs’ fishbowl, of the complaints of racial harassment by other African-Americans in the last half-decade. Still, Bradley pursued the Cubs till they cleared payroll and good chemistry guys like DeRosa to sign him.

“That just shows the kind of competitor he is,” Weaver said.  “He wanted to come to an organization that is about winning and wants to win and needs to win, the city itself. As an opposing player, a lot of baseball players love coming here. They love the excitement of the stadium. The fans are in to each and every game. Milton wants to be that player who makes a difference.”

Well, Bradley made a difference, but not the kind to which Weaver referred. Between serving as the anti-DeRosa in the clubhouse and only saying hello with his bat when it was time to say good-bye to the Cubs’ pennant-race hopes.

Wouldn’t it be so Cubs-like for the new Ricketts family ownership to mandate an exit strategy for Bradley, get rid of his baggage even as they ate part of the $20-some million left on his contract — and then find Milton maturing to become Weaver’s upstanding character elsewhere?

I wouldn’t bet on such a conclusion, but I also would not be surprised. Truth is stranger than fiction in the Cubs Universe.