Some Motherly Advice for Dodgers’ Bradley

Dear Charlena Rector,

Your son, Milton Bradley, tells me you read all the stories in the local newspapers about him, so I wanted you to know how our little sarcastic-columnist-to-hothead chat went Thursday in the Dodger clubhouse.

Well, he didn’t take a swing at me.

I know you’re not surprised, but I was. He hit a big home run to win the game for the Dodgers, and all the other reporters, who have been calling him a grouch behind his back, were fawning all over him while I wanted to know why he had disgustedly thrown his cap in center field half an inning earlier after catcher Paul Lo Duca had taken his throw and failed to tag out a Colorado runner.

“If you want to focus on the negative, you go ahead,” your son told me, and I guess he reads Page 2, too.

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THE THING is, I’ve always been fascinated by young men like your son, and told him so. He can be one of this town’s biggest stars or a problem child.

He’s obviously gifted athletically, and if you go back and check out the season highlights, the Dodgers wouldn’t be in first place without your kid.

But I’ve also spent time around athletes like Ryan Leaf, who threw it all away because they couldn’t control their emotions, and as you know, the reason your son is here is because he got thrown out of Cleveland. Now I agree we’d all try to get tossed out of Cleveland if sentenced to life there, but there’s no question he came to Los Angeles packing a shaky reputation.

“You’re the guy who asked me on opening day if I was a head case,” your son said Thursday, and that’s quite a memory. “When I came here I was a target....”

I interrupted, and my apologies, because your son is much more courteous, but I reminded him of his past transgressions and how he had made himself a target.

Even at his best Thursday against the Rockies, he strutted out of the batter’s box after his monster home run as if he has never hit one before, and kind of carried on as if he had really shown them, as if it’s difficult to beat the Rockies these days.

That’s OK, of course, and even good fun for Dodger fans if you’re a good guy and laughing about it later as if you knew it was kind of silly.

But the reporters around here tell me he has been moody and difficult to approach, so I asked him about it, and he said, “No one has talked to me; maybe they’re afraid of me.”

I know when he hit that home run to beat the Rockies it was down the right-field line, and while some wondered if the ump might call it foul, I knew there was no way the ump was going to risk getting beat up by your son. (That’s just some Page 2 humor there, Mom, to let you know I’m not treating your son any differently than the wife, the Grocery Store Bagger or the old guy here who is my boss.)

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YOU’VE GOT to admit, your son does look a little intense on the field. The other night he threw his batting helmet, and my point for picking on him for throwing his baseball cap Thursday was that it’s just not professional and reminds everyone that he’s a ticking bomb.

“It’s a competitive thing; I just want everyone to know how much I care,” he said. So on behalf of everyone in Los Angeles, I told your son, “We know you care, so now knock off all the histrionics, which might lead to an ejection and suspension, taking your skills away from the Dodgers down the stretch when they might need them the most.”

As you know, he has already gone bonkers, throwing baseballs all over the field after being ejected from a game, and that’s not the only time he has been ejected.

“That was for show,” he said with a grin, and maybe he flashes you that smile all the time, but it’s the first time I got it, and it’d be nice if everyone could see that more often. “You heard the crowd,” he continued with a smirk, “they were into it.”

I scolded him, of course, because like you, I’m a parent and we can’t have Little Leaguers throwing temper tantrums because that’s what they’ve seen your son do. I think he mistook it for me being negative once again.

“I saw you get into it with Jose Lima in here,” he said.

That was just for show, of course, and I told him I get into it with everyone, and those who understand it’s just for fun don’t have a problem, which one day might put me out of business.

Between you and me, that’s when your son really showed me something. I told him how confused I was. I didn’t know if I had another Kevin Brown on my hands, or someone with the talent and control of his emotions to really help the Dodgers make the playoffs. Apparently he’d given it some thought, too.

“When I first came here I was playing against the other team and the umps,” he said, “and you can’t win. You can’t blow up, you can’t blame it on the manager I had in Cleveland or anyone else, and I know that now, and I’m making the commitment to not let that happen anymore.”

I scoffed, of course, because that’s what I do as a Page 2 columnist, but you’d have been real proud of your kid, because he didn’t blink.

“You don’t have to worry about me getting kicked out of another game this season,” he said, and I told him I was going to write that one down, save it and be standing in front of his locker the first time he does get the boot. “It won’t happen. I’m not a dumb guy. I’m not going to do anything to cost this team.

“I’m here to help any way I can. My mom reads everything written in the newspapers, and I just want her to read something nice about me for a change.”

On Page 2? Now that would be a change.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.