I’m reporting for duty today from the Florida Panhandle, with designs on driving to East Texas later tonight. ETA for L.A. is Saturday night, just in time for … sleep.
By now you know about Milton Bradley beserking on Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre over innocuous (and true) on-air comments the broadcaster made about him last night. What you don’t know about this story is what makes it wildly ironic.
(Lefebvre: Class act who has overcome his own personal demons)
I had the pleasure of working with Ryan as a Royals broadcaster during the 1999 season. Great guy and a true professional. Before I met him, Ryan had gone through some tough times with alcohol, and since escaped his own personal demons. Here’s a quote from him last month - from a piece about his charitable Footprints Foundation:
“Through some difficulties that I had in college and after college, I just found myself drawn to go to church; just to have the emptiness filled up with God and not with alcohol, or drugs, or women, or possessions. God just laid down a path for me that allowed me to be influenced by mentors and people who have given me a good example.”
Ryan’s comments about Bradley came from a different place than the typical MLB broadcaster. And if anyone has insight into what Bradley is obviously wrestling with, it’s Lefebvre. So Lefebvre is the last guy Bradley should be irate at.
The only thing now that’s going to help Bradley get himself straight is to get away from all the baseball-borne enablers. Perhaps the Rangers will be smart enough to do that. But with the year on the field that Bradley is having, I highly doubt it.
Yesterday I heard Michael Wilbon live on WAXY-AM in Miami address the the online pix posted of him - together with porn stars - at a L.A. party. Wilbon went on Dan Le Batard’s afternoon show and threw a wet blanket over the fun that his PTI fill-in wanted to have with the piccies (Wilbon also talked briefly about it on PTI - and was slightly more jocular).
Le Batard was initially giddy when asking Wilbon about the photos, but the minute the WaPo columnist made it clear that he didn’t want to discuss the pay-for-sex-staffed soiree in detail, Le Batard’s tone suddenly took on a more subdued (and boring) tenor.
Wilbon’s cell phone soon after crapped out, and Le Batard, instead of trying to get his ESPN colleague back on the line, said goodbye to him on-air, even though it was clear that Wilbon had been disconnected and couldn’t hear him.
I’m wondering, if Wilbon had been willing to have fun with the DEADSPIN-found photos, do you think Le Batard would’ve suddenly dumped the interview? And by the way, we completely agree with what Le Batard did. He had the entertainment quotient of the show in mind.
In case for some reason you don’t know, Wilbon famously despises all manner of blogs, which is why he had no interest in discussing the pictures in the first place. Read more…
