Don't say you weren't warned: Hot-head Bradley burns Padres

This will end badly, with flashes of anger and bitterness. With Mt. Bradley, it always does. What you hope, simply, is that you have one heck of a romance before the break-up.

I wrote those words regarding Milton Bradley barely more than three weeks ago, when he was the wind beneath the wings of what to that point had been a mostly weak San Diego lineup.

The Padres allege umpire Mike Winters baited Milton Bradley in Sunday's game. (AP)

Today, because of one more failure by Bradley to manage his anger, that bird is grounded and the pieces are strewn for miles.

His knee is wrecked, his season finished, and that of the Padres might be as well after one incredibly stunning, troubling and bizarre day, the shadows of which will last for a long, long time.

Not only is Bradley headed for the surgeon's table to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament, but center fielder Mike Cameron is out for the rest of the season -- and, likely, for the playoffs, too, if the Padres get that far -- with a damaged hand.

Cameron's injury is related to Bradley, but had nothing to do with his meltdown. The two outfielders were scrambling after Garrett Atkins' liner in the seventh inning Sunday when Cameron dove and Bradley couldn't brake and, before it could be avoided, went clomp! on Cameron's hand.

The result was a bruised thumb and finger on Cameron's right hand -- X-rays Monday, according to the Padres, revealed a strained ulnar plate and a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his thumb.

And he was the lucky one, compared to Bradley.

"I'm not pleased," Padres general manager Kevin Towers said Monday night before a series opener in San Francisco. "I'm not pleased at all.

"We end up losing a player for the year. All I can go on is what (first-base coach Bobby) Meacham told me, and he said Milton didn't do anything wrong other than gesturing to the fans when they started booing the umpiring crew, gesturing that they were right."

Some very credible witnesses indicate that maybe this time circumstances went looking for Bradley rather than the other way around. The Padres are livid with umpire Mike Winters, whom they say provoked the temperamental outfielder after a disagreement over a called third strike earlier in the game.

Meacham, by all accounts a docile, model citizen throughout his years in the game, said afterward that, "In my 26 years of baseball, that was the most disconcerting conversation I have heard from an umpire to a player."

Among other things, Bradley said that Winters called him a "piece of s---."