Not content to simply embark on his job of covering a perenially-contending club this year, Gordon Wittenmeyer instead made the conscious decision during the offseason to lazily (and sloppily, as it turns out) hitch his wagon to the world of Milton Bradley.

As Dolan pointed out, Wittenmeyer’s initial strategy was to befriend Milton by painting the fanbase as racist. This pretty much backfired when Bradley boycotted the media primarily because of Gordon’s douchebaggery. Had Wittenmeyer possessed any professionalism, he would have been embarrassed by unwittingly making himself part of the story. Luckily for him–and those who champion the death of traditional beat reporting– Wittenmeyer has no pride, and thus has already settled in to the agenda that he obviously intends to execute for the rest of the season.

From Tuesday’s recap:

It’s hard to tell which was longer: Milton Bradley’s wait for Cubs fans to stop booing him or the home run he hit toward the upper deck in center field to help the Cubs beat Jake Peavy and the San Diego Padres 6-2 on Tuesday.

Gotta love that. Milton Bradley’s wait for Cubs fans to stop booing him. That’s right. The booing has been constant. When he gets out of his car at Wrigley, he’s being booed. When he’s shagging flies in the outfield during BP, he’s being booed. When he’s eating his breakfast and his phone rings and he answers it, guess what? It’s a heckler on the other end, booing him.

It’s a good thing Wittenmeyer doesn’t exaggerate for cheap effect.

Also, when did the Cubs build an “upper deck” to the bleachers? Are they still collecting 17% of the profits from the rooftop clubs? That seems wrong to me.

Either way, it wasn’t hard to tell what was going through the first-year Cubs outfielder’s mind when he touched his finger to the back of his ear as the Wrigley Field crowd cheered from its feet after he rounded the bases on his go-ahead shot in the sixth inning.

It might not seem hard to tell what was going through his mind, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that your guess is probably wrong.

”Nice to hear some cheers for once,” Bradley said. ”I didn’t come here to suck. I know I’ve sucked so far, but give me some love, you know what I’m saying? I am a Cub.”

You know what? I fucking love Milton Bradley. How many players are honest and secure enough to admit that they were underperforming?

That didn’t stop the home fans from treating him during the first two homestands — and after his fourth-inning strikeout Tuesday — like first-year slumping Cubs before him in recent years.

***BULLSHIT ALERT*** ***BULLSHIT ALERT*** ***BULLSHIT ALERT***

Aaaaand there it is.

Okay, let’s back up. The first homestand ran from April 13th through April 22nd. Milton did not play in the first two games against Colorado and then made his memorable Wrigley Field debut in this game, getting rung up by an apparently blind Larry Vanover in a key pinch-hitting situation. I think it’s fair to say that any booing that followed that at-bat was directed at Vanover, not Bradley. No matter, of course. In order to fit this square peg into a round hole, I’m sure Busfield scored that one as a boo against Bradley in his book.

Two days later, Bradley led off the ninth inning of a tie game and grounded out. By this point, Milton had been a non-factor. Not good or bad. Not worthy of exalting or booing. Two at-bats in 5 games.

Well maybe something happened in the final 4 games of the homestand to anger the fans. Let’s see. Oops, Sunday the 19th was rained out. Okay, how about April 20th? Nope. Didn’t play. The 21st? Nope. Still out. Finally, on April 22nd, on the last game of the season’s first homestand, Milton Bradley made his first Wrigley Field start and admittedly struggled, stranding several runners while striking out three times. There was booing after his strikeout in the 6th inning but, like his first Wrigley Field at-bat a week earlier, it was directed toward home plate umpire Lance Barksdale, who rang up Bradley on a questionable call. Again, though, Gordo assuredly put that in the Bradley ledger. As a point of fact, Bradley also struck out leading off the the 9th, and that is what inspired the first boos of his Cubs career. I do not defend booing, only do it myself for poor effort, but if you were inclined to get on a player, I suppose there are worse times to do it than after the third and final strikeout to cap off an 0-for-4 day in a frustrating loss. Neverthelees, let’s revisit Wittenbusfield’s implication that constant booing was prevalent during the first two homestands. In reality, Bradley got booed only after his final at-bat in the final inning of the final game of a season-opening 8 game homestand.

Boo fucking hoo, Wittenmeyer, you twit.

I’m not here to defend Cub fans. I’m usually the first one calling out all of the jackasses who go to Wrigley Field to be seen and whatnot. The place can often be crawling with douchebags. And the expectations that a majority of the fans put on this team while exhibiting the patience of a 3 year old on crack are pretty ridiculous and unenlightened. But I will say this about the fans at Cubs games, and this is from a guy who has been to over 300 games and has sat in the bleachers for close to 100 of them. Racial taunts are non-existent–I have in fact, never heard a heckle that was overtly racist, save for the time that I, myself heckled a 600 pound Bobby Bonilla during BP on Opening Day 2000 by asking him if he would like a slab of ribs before I quickly realized that my comment could easily be taken the wrong way (why, oh why didn’t I just say pizza?). Point is, anybody spewing any vile racist bullshit would not be tolerated by the fans. I’ve never heard the N-word hurled and, if I did, I wouldn’t waste a second in getting the guy tossed, and I’m pretty confident in saying most of the fans would do the same.

Secondly, and this comes back to this issue when it has been discussed in the past, be it Derrek Lee, Ryan Dempster or any of these all-too-glad-to-sanctimoniously-opine-to-the-media types, booing happens, get over it, get used to it. Win and you’ll be loved. Is it that hard to ignore the frustrated, suppressed rage emanating from a bunch of sad sack failed athletes who don’t even possess a sliver of the athletic ability that they do? Are ballplayer really that thin-skinned? And can’t dumbasses like reality-challenged Gordon Wittenmeyer find more interesting storylines?

Thank god this was just a game recap and not one of Gordon”s soapbox rants, because I don’t think I’d have had the stamina to turd-mine an entire column of this guy’s bullshit.