PEORIA, Ariz. - Maybe it works this time. Maybe the presence of someone Milton Bradley so admires he would ask for his autograph makes a difference.

Maybe the anger which has caused a nearly ritual dismissal by team after team does not get in the way of the talent which causes a nearly ritual acquisition by team after team.

Maybe. Just maybe.

It's the Seattle Mariners now for Bradley. It's the eighth team in 11 seasons now for Bradley. It's a franchise where he joins one of his idols, Ken Griffey Jr., a franchise that like so many others has taken a chance.

The past is never far from the present in sports. Virtually every story begins with a reference, an allusion. Either a positive one. "Tim Lincecum, trying to win a third straight Cy Young Award . . .'' Or a negative one. "Milton Bradley, known for dugout tantrums and run-ins with fans and media . . . ‘'

Reputations are not easily escaped. Especially when they are deserved. As, unfortunately is Milton Bradley's. To his understandable displeasure.

"It's always the same thing,'' he said a few days back when arriving at the Mariners' spring training complex some 20 miles west of Phoenix. " ‘Are you looking forward to this? Is it a fresh start?' All that cliché stuff.

"But I don't really believe in all that. I believe if people just let you be and don't steer you in any certain direction, don't steer people's thoughts in a certain direction, then things will work out the way they're supposed to.''

The way they didn't work out in Montreal. Or Cleveland. Or with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland, San Diego, Texas or the Chicago Cubs, who in December traded Bradley for Carlos Silva, one team getting rid of someone to another team getting rid of someone.

Milton Bradley, 31, lifetime batting average .277, says it will be different. "In the past I've always wanted to win," was the explanation. "I didn't care whether I liked it or not. But at this point in my career, I want to enjoy it, have fun.''

From afar, from the numbers, one would surmise the Mariners will have fun. And success. Ichiro Suzuki leads off, followed by Chone Figgins, followed by Bradley followed by Griffey, a batting order which demands respect.

But Wednesday, in the game that began Cactus League 2010, when the Mariners faced the San Francisco Giants, there wasn't much enjoyment for Bradley. He botched a fly ball in left field, and the booing was quick to follow. A fan started ragging Bradley, who did manage to keep his cool.

Unlike that evening at Dodger Stadium when Bradley tossed a plastic water bottle into the stands. A few months later, December 2005, he was traded to the Athletics, and the Los Angeles Times carried the headline, "Dodgers Solve Bradley Problem.''

Milton Bradley, who grew up in southern California, who graduated from Long Beach Poly High, which Tony Gwynn and Chase Utley also attended - Utley playing there with Bradley - continues as a problem unsolvable.

"The kid has great talent,'' said Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti.

And an uncontrollable temper, displayed so many times it's hard to count.

Last June, with the Cubs, he was sent home by manager Lou Pinella during a game after throwing his batting helmet. At San Diego in September 2007, Bradley was involved in so heated an argument with an umpire he got his legs tangled with his manager and tore a ligament . And there was the time he screamed at a reporter from the balcony of his home in Redondo Beach.

The year and a half with Oakland was less troublesome, and Bradley even was complimentary of the populace. "They are hard-working people,'' he said. "They understand struggles and dealing with something, going through something.''

The thinking in Seattle is that with Griffey, so experienced, so wise, in the same clubhouse, Bradley will find the comfort he's rarely found, that the anger will be managed. After the trade, Griffey phoned Bradley.

"Anything I needed,'' Bradley said, "he was there, and I wouldn't expect anything less.''

What should Seattle and baseball expect from Bradley?

"He has no other choice but to have fun,'' was Griffey's answer. "It's a mutual respect . . . He can flat play, and I don't see anything other than he's a professional who wants to do things the right way.''

What he wants to do, and what he has done have been quite different.