"Interesting day down at the ballyard, as the Mariners announced that Milton Bradley will sit out at least the next few days to deal with what general manager Jack Zduriencik termed "some very personal and very emotional things in his life right now.''

Bradley addressed his team in a closed door meeting and explained that he had issues he had to work out. Zduriencik said the team is going to get Bradley the help he needs and give him time to get himself right.

This morning, as the team was preparing to head off into groups to speak to various local schools, Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu received a phone call from Bradley, who several team sources confirmed had stormed out of Safeco Field after being benched at the start of last night's seventh inning.

After a lengthy conversation on the phone, Bradley came down to Safeco for a private conversation, face-to-face, with Wakamatsu and Zduriencik in which he asked them to help him with his issues.

Zduriencik said Bradley's exact words were along the lines of "Can you help me? I need your help.''

"Milton has asked us if we could be of assistance to him,'' Zduriencik said. "If there's any way that we, as an organization, can help him to get through this period of time. And, as a member of this organization, certainly as a representative of the baseball end of it, we'll do anything we can to help Milton. We firmly believe that it's important that we manage people first. Certainly, we're about winning baseball games. We're about trying to put the best product on the field. But most important, are the employees who work for us in this organization. In this case, Milton is one of those employees. We'll do everything we can. We will join together as a baseball group. We will join together as an organization and help him receive the assistance that he needs.''"