I wasn’t lying when I said that I don’t even bother to read the Sun-Times for any Cubs news these days. But when an intrepid reader e-mailed me this morning to tell me what Gordon Wittenmyer wrote today, I just had to look.
Didn’t I?
So yes, I managed to ruin my morning before it ever got started. Honestly, this is more my fault than his. I know he’s a douche, and I know he’s going to write douchy things. So now you are all going to suffer, too. Today, Gordon does the math and decides that Jock Jones and LaTroy Hawkins being booed (plus) Horry Cow t-shirts = racist Cubs fans booing Milton Bradley.
The motive for this column is nearly as transparent as Gordon’s albino skin. He thinks he’s going to become Milton Bradley’s pal.
But we all know that no matter what he thinks, Gordon is still the reporter most likely to be stuffed in a trash can by Milton.
By the way, you know he’s a douche because I didn’t have to make the graphic for this column, I already had it.
I’m not going to refute any of Gordo’s claims in the column today, because I don’t know if any of them aren’t true. I feel reasonably confident that every team, unfortunately has a number of redneck, racist fans. Every city, unfortunately has redneck, racist people, so it goes to follow. I do not, however, from spending time at Wrigley and at other ballparks, think that there are more redneck racists there than anywhere else.
What I do know is that many of the most popular Cubs of all-time are not white. Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, and Andre Dawson aren’t white and they’re universally beloved by Cubs fans. Sammy Sosa was on that list and he didn’t fall off because he wasn’t white. He fell off because Cubs’ fans finally came to see him as a steroid-fueled, selfish fraud.
Now, I’m sure Gordon would argue that the only reason Cubs’ fans don’t virulently hate these guys is because they were great players. So how does that explain the Shawon-o-Meter, or fans throwing Oh Henry! bars at mediocre Cubs outfielder Henry Rodriguez? Cubs’ fans to this day decry the day Kenny Lofton was allowed to leave town and leave the 2004 Cubs’ without a real leadoff man. Cubs fans hated the Lee Smith for two white dudes trade the minute it happened, and you don’t hear anybody defending the shipping of Lou Brock out of town for lilly white Ernie Broglio, do you?
The biggest weakness in Gordon’s argument is that his poster boys are Jock Jones and LaTroy Hawkins.
Jock got booed, a lot. He also deserved to get booed, a lot. He was clueless at the plate, inept in the field and asleep on the bases. He was, a lousy ballplayer. I also know that he was Gordon’s only friend in the Cubs’ clubhouse. And that explains a lot of Gordon’s writings last year about how awful it was that Jock was gone and Kosuke Fukudome was here.
Jock’s finest hour was that Friday afternoon in his first season with the Cubs when Carlos Zambrano was throwing a no-hitter against the Braves and Jock let a flyball hit him in the chest. It was ruled a hit because Jock lost the ball in the sun. The story gets even more surreal when two guys had the temerity to boo Jock, and his mother (yes, his mother) got in a shouting match with them and tried to have them kicked out of the park.
As for LaTroy, we’ll always remember how level-headed he was, like the time he told Gordon’t precious media, “I don’t have to talk to you because I can do your job, but you can’t do mine.” Or the time he got thrown out of the game by the home plate umpire and it took six players and five minutes to get LaTroy off the field.
If Mike Cameron is hearing racist taunts at Wrigley it’s embarrassing and wrong. It’s also troubling because there are so many other things you can make fun of Mike for, like his 50 game steroids suspension, or the time he broke his face.
But what was the purpose of today’s column? It was couched as having something to do with the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut in the big leagues and Milton’s 31st birthday, but that was kind of a throw away. What it really read like was Gordon trying to plant the seeds for Milton to think that if he gets booed for starting the season 1-17 it’s not because of his performance, but because he’s black.
I’d have been offended if I was Milton, because it appears all Gordon is doing is telling him, “Hey, you’re a redass who can’t control your temper and never has been able to, and now you’re playing with the Cubs, and they boo their players, especially black ones, so you’re probably going to do something embarrassing this season.”
I also don’t follow how the “Hee Seop Choi” chants at Wrigley when Derrek Lee was stinking it up in early 2004 were racist. Hee Seop is Korean, right? I mean, Gordon takes offense to those horrendous Horry Cow t-shirts, but can’t see the irony in this?
In the end, the Milton Bradley era won’t be derailed by the fans. In fact, he’s likely to be one of the most popular Cubs, because like current Cubs fan favorite Carlos Zambrano, he plays hard, he wears his emotions on his sleeve and Chicago sports fans of all kinds, love nothing more than a player who obviously wants to win.
Maybe Wrigley is a racist place. I have friends who are Red Sox fans who bristle at the mention that Fenway is racist, because they acknowledge, with embarrassment that it used to be. If Wrigley is, somebody with more talent than Gordon Wittenmyer needs to bring it to light. We know Gordon’s a hack, so he’s just not up to it.
It just seems ignorant, and simplistic (two of Gordon’s specialities) to declare Wrigley Field as a hive of racism. It’s insulting to pass along this effort as a substantive attempt to enlighten people as to the racist climate at Wrigley Field.
If this is what passes for journalism at the Sun-Times these days, it certainly makes it that much easier to ignore that paper, doesn’t it?
The Cubs fans booed me because they thought I was Canadian!
Fortunately, there aren’t any bloggers who are blatantly racist, basically disliking every black player the Cubs acquire before they even put on their uniform.
HOFF POWER!!!
It’s a great thing I’m white, because I experienced the LOVE from Cubs fans. It’s unfortunate they hate Geovanny Soto so much!
They booed my white ass on Tuesday because I have South African heritage. I’m from New York? I was a terrible pitcher? Oh, that makes way more sense.
No, Jason, I told Gordon they booed you because you’re Jewish. That’s why these guys are so hard on Chuck too.
No one ever heckled me…but then again I’m about as black as Karl Malone.
They booed my white ass and called my phone and sent me death threa.. . oh wait booing doesn’t encompass that behavior.
There isn’t one of me today?
Andy’s just jealous because Wittenmeyer had a role (as the annoying brother-in-law) in “Field of Dreams”.
If there is anyone that I hate it is a bigot…and Patagonians.
I forgot. I also hate short people. They got no reason to live.
Guess who just jammed it up your Cubbies’ asses for seven innings today? How ya like me now, Dolan and all of you bitches?
This doesn’t have much to do with anything, but holy hell, this Borrelli jerkoff uses Chip Caray’s Rush fandom as a reference of how cool they’ve become.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-rush-0415apr15,0,3880452.story
“If you have waited decades for the signal to come out of the closet and declare your allegiance…consider this your official notice.”
Perhaps I’ve been sitting in the wrong area of the park, but in 30-plus years of going to games at Wrigley (including hundreds of games in the bleachers), I can count on one hand the number of racial-ish taunts that I’ve heard from the crowd, and two of those came from opposing fans (one Dodgers fan about 15 years ago, and one White Sox fan about eight years back), and another was directed at Willie Stargell and Dave Parker on the Pirates… 30 freakin’ years ago.
Meanwhile, I’ve been to probably about half as many Sox games (used to go to old Comiskey a lot as a kid and teenager, since my family was mostly Sox fans), and I’ve heard racial comments with regularity there, and as recently as two years ago.
Gordo’s article was a steaming pile of second-hand innuendo and unsourced rumor, and if he really wants to see what racism at a ballpark looks like, he should spend an afternoon in the upper deck at Turner Field, where the n-word is used profusely as a noun, verb and adjective by white Georgians.
You tell ’em, Gordon.
Kenny Lofton left the Cubs because Hee Seop Choi kept following him around the clubhouse to make sure he didn’t steal anything. We all know you already swept that area, Hee Seop!
Cubs fans weren’t particularly kind to me either. They must not like Venezuelans, Dominicans, Columbians, Cubans, Belezeans, or whatever nationality I am either. Wherever it is I am from, it’s hot and it rains a lot in the summer months, mon.
Did anyone forward this article or alink to it to Commissioner Gordo?
I have received word that he read it, and didn’t like it so much. Go figure.
you sir are the winner.
Good. I hope the stupid fuck thinks before he writes another piece of crap like that.
He found being called a douchebag to be unkind? To whom? Douchebags?
HMPH!
Jacque Jones: After being released by Cincinnati in spring training, Jones recently traveled to Las Vegas for a one-on-one tutorial with the “Hit Man,” Mike Easler. Jones hit .091 in 44 Grapefruit League at-bats with the Reds, so he has some work to do to get back on the radar.