I have too much respect for you to remember how many outs there are.Remember back in April when Sun Times douche Gordon Wittenmyer was espousing his “Cubs fans are racist” theories that we wondered if he was a) trying to cuddle up to Milton Bradley or b) trying to light Milton’s fuse?

Yesterday in the after effects of Milton throwing yet another temper tantrum, and this time, finally, setting Lou Piniella off in response, we found out what Gordon was up to back in April.

After the sixth inning confrontation when Milton decided to turn his angst into a routine fly out to left into a Michael Bay production of a dugout tantrum, Lou followed him down the tunnel and the two had a spirited chat.  Lou says that “I told him to take off his uniform and go home.  I’m tired of watching those things.”

The Librarian had some excellence quotes from Alfonso Soriano after the game.  The kind that (gasp!) a leader would typically say after something like this.  (Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but for all of his faults–and there are a lot–Soriano has a lot of admirable traits, none that are worth $18 million a year, but hey, if they offer it to you, you going to say no?–He works hard (though he doesn’t always play hard which is confusing) but by all accounts, he never complains, he never makes excuses and no matter how much he’s hurt he always wants to play.  So him going off on Bradley was surprising, and, damning of Milton.  Because who’s going to argue with any of what Soriano said?  Nice job, Milton, you turned the friendliest, happiest teammate you have against you.  Congratulations!)

I hope [Bradley] comes back and he can help the team to win. If he’s not that way, we don’t need him. We have 25 players, we have to be on the same page. If he’s not 100 percent to help the team to win, we don’t need him. If he’s 100 percent and he comes and wants to play, he’s more than welcome.”

This was Soriano saying, “Hey pal, I’m in a slump, too, and you don’t see me making life miserable for everybody else because of it.  Shut your ass, stop throwing things and get to work.  Go take some more extra BP and try not to pull your groin this time.”

Bradley talked with the media after Lou grounded him, but interestingly, the post-tirade aftermath stories by Paul Sullivan and Bruce Miles (and everybody else, save for Gordo) don’t read like what Wittenmyer reported.

Gordon got some interesting quotes from an unnamed source.

According to sources, Piniella then shouted at Bradley, ”You’re not a player! You’re a piece of sh–!”

Bradley then said, ”I have too much respect for you to respond to that,” a source said.

Gordon won’t name his sources for you, but I will.  It’s not sources, plural, it’s source, and it’s Milton Bradley.

Are any of us really supposed to believe either of those quotes?

Bradley, claimed to have been called a “piece of shit” by Mike Winters (actually he says Winters called him a “fucking piece of shit”) in 2007 during the argument that ended with Bradley tearing his ACL.  So, Milton, what are you saying?  That it’s your nickname, now?  Or that the world is out to get you?  Well, we know what you think.

But what really gives it away is the second quote.  Come on, Gordon, even you are smarter than this.  Who’s going to believe you when you pretend that a crazed player, throwing things, destroying water coolers and who claims to have just been called a “piece of shit” by his own manager, turns into Nigel Chamberlain and says, “I have too much respect for you to respond to that.”

Of course it can’t be refuted.  Nobody really knows what was said either way, but nobody with a brain is going to believe Gordon’s account of this.  Either Milton fed him a line and he took it, or worse, he helped Milton cook up his little ruse.  The idea is to turn the focus from Milton continuing his life-long pattern of acting like a tempermental child, to Lou…wait for it…being a racist.  It’s not going to work, Gordon, because nobody believes it.  The rest of the Cubs don’t believe it, your reporter colleagues don’t believe it and hey, you already said that all Cubs fans are racist, so even if they believe it, they’re just going to agree with Lou, right?

I’m not sure whose act I’m more tired of, Milton or Gordon’s.

And if you wonder how I can think it’s funny when Carlos Zambrano throws an umpire out of a game, tries to throw a ball from home plate to the centerfield bleachers and takes a bat to the Gatorade machine, and not think it’s funny when Milton does it, there’s a difference.  Carlos has a history of such behavior, but except for smashing in the face of his dopey catcher, he has no history of tearing a team apart.  You’d like to see them both just knock it off, though. Carlos doing that once this year was funny.  If he trots out the same act again?  It gets tired fast.

Lou put up with Milton longer than any of us thought he would, and probably longer than he should have.  But Lou’s history shows one thing.  If Milton will get his act together everything will be fine.  If he doesn’t?  Milton doesn’t want to test that.  It ends with the Cubs paying 100 percent of his salary and him throwing the same tantrums in Newark.