The SUV pulls up in front of U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago late Wednesday afternoon. Inside are the Brothers Ford and a couple of staff members.

Toronto reporters accompanying Mayor Rob Ford have been told: 1) a scheduled tour of the ballpark — formerly Comiskey Field — with Hizzoner would be open to media; 2) the tour is closed to media; 3) the tour is closed to media but open for a photo-op, which would make it not entirely shut, just a bit ajar, no questions, the way Ford likes things because every time he opens his mouth, unscripted, a clanger jumps out.

Ford’s press secretary, George Christopoulos, looking strained, emerges from the vehicle and huddles with colleagues for 10 minutes while the Fords remain out of sight. Doug Ford alights and steams past journalists, clearly annoyed. Rob Ford follows shortly thereafter, ambling, appearing a bit splotchy.

Both go inside and reporters attempt to follow. Uh-uh, says Christopoulos. He’s reminded this was agreed to be, at the very least, a photo-op exercise. Another aide clarifies: “That was the photo-op.’’

Ford. Walking. From SUV to entrance.

Complaints are deflected with a like-it-or-lump-it dismissal.

A scribe — not from the Star — follows up with an earful call to Christopoulos’ cellphone. The press majordomo relents and journalists at last are granted a backstage walkabout of the facility, the field, even a look-see at the White Sox locker room. Team owner Jerry Reinsdorf himself greets journalists inside his memorabilia-filled office. Chicagoans are hospitable people and the city’s political machinery well-oiled.

But of the Fords, not a glimpse.

Buh-bye and thanks for coming.

Little wonder front-line media came home shell-shocked from the shambolic Ford All-Star Travelling Circus, mayor and entourage drumming up business between Toronto and its sister city. They were pathetically grateful for those occasions when Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s professional, unsurly staff assumed command of events, such as the official signing of a renewed joint cities declaration, and everything proceeded smoothly.

For their part, Ford’s aides really do need to get a copy of Media Relations for Dummies.

Of course, they work for a notoriously unpredictable boss, whose missteps are piling up like steaming dog turds and where too much energy is being expended on damage control, walking it back.

The mayor returned to Toronto headlines about more curtailment of Ford media scrutiny — reporters suddenly prevented from stepping foot on Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School property, where Ford coaches football. This, say school officials, is purportedly to protect the security of students, though it does seem suspiciously like all of a Ford-shielding piece. Ford, of course, has been admonished for leaving an executive council meeting to attend a practice last week. At least one aide in the mayor’s office — his salary on the public dime — has been helping to manage the team, using a city-owned car and cellphones.

But Thursday’s primary gotcha — the latest in a here-there-everywhere series of incidents that cast serious doubt on Ford’s judgment — came courtesy of a front-page Globe and Mail story about road improvement repairs this summer outside his family-owned plastic label business. Two senior city officials confirmed Ford attended a meeting over the summer where he asked for the work — which had not even been originally planned for 2012 — to be completed before a 50th anniversary bash for Deco Labels and Tags. Funny thing but the Star’s reporters received a different response from the city when they enquired about those repairs two weeks ago — that Ford had not requested them.

That’s too inside-baseball for the general public to care about, who scoops whom. But voters should most assuredly be concerned, again, about the optics and ethics of the mayor using his influence — even tacitly — to benefit personally. And in this episode, there’s no humanitarian cover, which Ford employed as a defence to rationalize soliciting funds from city hall lobbyists for his football charity. That matter is still before the courts, awaiting a judge’s decision on conflict-of-interest allegations.

It seems hardly a day goes by without Ford’s conduct and discernment being questioned — and it’s not because the big bad media is picking on him or the gleeful lefties on council are leading the pile-on charge. Even his most ardent supporters are despairing over the mayor’s predilection for doing the blatantly wrong thing, with allies in the press and at city hall running for . . . deniability. Misusing city resources, especially, contradicts the core values Ford thumped in his stop-the-gravy campaigning for the mayor’s job.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the public works committee and a Ford acolyte, has chided the mayor for failing to separate his private interests from his civic responsibilities. Other coat-holders and consorts have been bailing, dismayed by escalating chaos in the mayor’s office. At least one close aide, fed up with incoherent 4 a.m. phone calls from the boss, is considering bolting.

The Rob & Doug radio show returned to the airwaves last weekend as an astonishingpanto of paranoia, two hours of the brothers crudely unloading on their critics. As they say, though, even paranoids have enemies and these guys have been racking ’em up. The trickle of inner-circle disgruntlement — an anonymous informer here, a disillusioned disciple there — is starting to spate.

The whole package threatens to split open like a piñata.

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Throughout his political career, Ford has been the iconoclast, largely shunned by colleagues and wearing his isolation like a badge. He never bothered to sand the edges and his lumpen persona found wide favour with voters when Ford’s moment arrived.

That moment is so fifteen minutes ago.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.