Of Ozzie Guillen and blow-up dolls

May 6th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

It’s bad enough the Sox are coming off a four-game sweep at the hands of the Blue Jays. It’s bad enough their first place title is now gone, destined never to return again this season. It’s bad enough Guillen turned out one of his famous tirades in which he called the Sox “Chicago’s bitch.” (Can’t say I necessarily disagree.)

On top of all this, Guillen now has to deal with columnists shocked — absolutely shocked I tell you! — that a major league clubhouse might, get this, not respect women all the time.

Designed to help the team break out of its slump, the shrine featured two female blow-up dolls surrounded by ‘’strategically placed” baseball bats and was accompanied by a sign that read, ”You’ve Got To Push,” Canada’s National Post reported.

”A few of the bats were doing naughty things,” Sun-Times beat writer Joe Cowley wrote in his blog. Apparently one of the dolls was propped up by a bat in its rear end. Whether the lewdness was intentional or not, this was inappropriate. As were the blow-up dolls. Period.

[ … ]

Apparently the sensitivity training classes Guillen attended after using a gay slur in 2006 did not include a segment on blow-up dolls.

Just so we’re clear, had there been any female reporters working Sunday’s game — my understanding is there weren’t — the Sox could have found themselves in legal trouble as a result of the display. It’s also possible male reporters were offended by the display.

But this isn’t about reporters’ feelings. Reporters are conduits to the fans. What a team does behind closed doors is its own business. But once the locker room opens, the franchise is on public display. So, how do you like your team now, Sox fans? Do you think the players respect women? I’m not so sure about that.

So in an effort to try and lighten the mood and help the team hit, the Sox have effectively pissed off a female Sun-Times columnist and still aren’t hitting at all. So, to tally: one Guillen outburst, one borderline sort of, but not really offensive prank by the Sox all within the span of one series. And it’s only May. This season, I have a feeling, only promises to get better.

Ozzie Guillen: Still unhinged, but smarter

May 5th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

I would never stoop so low as to actually cheer against the White Sox — that’s for bitter White Sox fans do in re: the Cubs — but Ozzie Guillen’s brilliance does provide one of the better team barometers in Major League Baseball history. How many managers can provide you with an approximation of the team’s record and place in the standings without even so much as a glance at either? Because his craziness is so many different flavors of awesome, it’s easy to intuit where the Sox stand just from how cocky or preening or pissed off Ozzie is that day.

Right now, I’d put them on a five-game losing streak. Sound about right?

”Right now, everyone in Chicago is making lineups, ‘Call up this guy, call up that guy,”’ Guillen said. ”If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That’s what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media — they forget pretty quick. A couple of days ago, we were the [bleep]ing best [bleep] in town, now we’re [bleep].”

Asked why that is, Guillen pulled no punches.”Because maybe the manager is an ass[bleep],” he replied.

Guillen said that the only way the perception of the Sox ever would change is by winning, but even after they did in 2005, it hasn’t taken long for it to wear off.

”We won it a couple years ago, and we’re horse[bleep],” Guillen said. ”The Cubs haven’t won in 120 years, and they’re the [bleep]ing best. [Bleep] it, we’re good. [Bleep] everybody. We’re horse[bleep], and we’re going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the bitch of Chicago. We’re the Chicago bitch. We have the worst owner — the guy’s got seven [bleep]ing rings, and he’s the [bleep]ing horse[bleep] owner.

Through all the swears, I think Ozzie just made an argument for sample size rationality. He’s officially making sense. Getting smarter. Learning tendencies. Evolving.

He must be stopped. Don’t think I didn’t see Jurassic Park; next thing you know he’ll be using doorknobs to attack small blond children with his giant claw.

Shooooot hah! Shooooot hah!

Ozzie Guillen is creeping on Derek Jeter

April 24th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Everyone likes Derek Jeter at least a little bit. Or, that is to say, everyone likes the idea of Derek Jeter, the notion that there is this steely-eyed clutch monster who never lets his team down. The ultimate captain. The gamer. The winner. Mr. New York. All that nonsense.

A look at the real Derek Jeter reveals a player who, while still productive offensively, is a truly dismal defensive player and whose “clutch” exploits have found something of a selective audience. When the Yankees win in the playoffs, it’s because Jeter pulled them through; when they lose, it’s because A-Rod let them down. Nor is Jeter a particularly good captain, considering he’s seemed pretty willing to let New York fans filet Rodriguez even though Rodriguez is without question the better player.

Anyway, you probably wouldn’t be reading if you didn’t already know all this, so let’s get to the important bit: Ozzie Guillen buys in to the Myth of Derek Jeter, and wants (his imaginary daughter) to make hot, sweaty man-love with that myth:

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had no problem expressing his man-crush on New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. ”Derek Jeter has everything in his life,” Guillen gushed Wednesday. ”He’s got money, he’s got rings…”

Then Guillen paused and laughed as it became obvious where he was going.

”He’s not married,” he continued. ”He lives in New York. At the All-Star Game, I looked around to see if he’s got anything I don’t like. Whoa. The perfect man. Too bad I don’t have a daughter.”

I don’t want to know what Ozzie could possibly have been “looking around at”, or what about it was so “perfect.” I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Anyway, I’m sure he was just talking about Derek Jeter’s lifestyle. I heard that lifestyle is great, too. Long, and thick, but not too much … just the right balance of size, girth, and proportion. That’s one hell of a lifestyle.

Ozzie Guillen just now realizing how dumb most humans are

April 7th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

I don’t hate Ozzie Guillen. I’m ambivalent. He’s not a great manager, and gets way too much credit for the White Sox’ 2005 World Series run — home runs and lights-out pitching had far more to do with the team’s success than any supposed “smartball” could have — but he’s not a bad manager, either. He’s like most: reliant on talent for his own reputation. Managing is redundant that way.

So no, I don’t hate Ozzie, but I do kinda pity him. Because it seems he’s just now figuring out that there are morons in the world:

After a quick scan through his e-mails, Ozzie Guillen has read how he ”hates Brian Anderson” as well as being a ”Venezuelan piece of [bleep] that is racist and only starts the Latino players.” And those were sent in just the last few days. Not that the Sox manager is a stranger to hearing that kind of talk, but now seemed the time to set the record straight on a few fronts. Especially concerning the idea that he favors Latino players more than the ”white guys.””I got a bunch of e-mails that said I played the ‘Cuban Missile’ [rookie Alexei Ramirez in the season opener] because he’s Cuban,” Guillen said. ”Wow, did you see the spring training the ‘Cuban Missile’ had? You would play him, too. I don’t make a lineup because of who is Latino and who is not. That’s ignorant. The ‘Cuban Missile’ had bad games because he went against C.C. [Sabathia] and [Fausto] Carmona.

All sorts of confusion here. What is Ozzie doing reading email from fans? Is this his personal account, or a WhiteSox.com one? And why aren’t PR people filtering out the retards? But mostly, if Ozzie is just now realizing that there are a lot of dumb white people in this country, and that some of them have some truly damaged thoughts about professional sports and race, well, we need to get him a gig filtering promo-screen FanHouse commenters. That ought to open some eyes.

This should go well

February 18th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

As R is a White Sox fan, and I am a Cubs fan, we politely agree to disagree about Chicago baseball lore. To him, the White Sox are a first love passed down by family. To me, the Cubs are the purest expression of baseball we have left, a nostalgic treat for someone who usually eschews nostalgia and an unhealthy obsession passed down by WGN. In Iowa, no one can hear you cheer — but we love the Cubs all the same.

There is one thing we do agree on: Ozzie Guillen is out his damn mind. Thankfully, Ozzie has decided to be free to be Ozzie this year. This is going to be awesome:

In fact, he has put the stadium operations people on notice, saying they might want to rethink the plan that calls for his postgame news conferences to air on the U.S. Cellular Field video screen.

“I know there are kids there,” he said.

Guillen promises to be “back to [being] Ozzie.” That means his language won’t be fit for children and that his commentary about his players will be pointed.

“Last year I hated to walk back to the tunnel and see [reporters],” Guillen said. “I ran out of bullets because I was honest. Sometimes during games I was asking the coaches what to say. This year I’m going to know what I’m going to say because I’m back to being Ozzie.”

Having lost their two gritty, grindy top-of-the-lineup-but-why? white guys in the offseason, the White Sox will need Ozzie to make up the grit deficit. Everybody, get ready to bunt!

Something about randomization or something

December 12th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

So people were linking this NYT Freakonomics blog post yesterday stating the case for sports teams to use randomization to figure out which strategies work best. Seemed cool. Seemed interesting. And, I mean, the guy that wrote it is a professor at Yale. (Yale! Wow!) It makes some sense; the arguement here is certainly not without merit. It also dips into that whole argument that football teams should always go for it on fourth down, which seems absurd but is backed up by a considerable amount of data and anlysis.

But then I read this graph and I think my head spun:

They could even have a randomized trial of randomization — they could randomly assign the pitches for half the at-bats to be called in the traditional way (by the coach or the catcher) and the other half could be called by a random strategy established in advance. It would be a double-blind study, because neither the pitcher nor the hitter would need to know which system called the pitch.

Oh, OK: a double-blind, randomized trial of randomization utilizing random strategy with random players? Sounds like Ozzie Guillen’s coaching strategy. (Grumble, grumble.)

Um, the White Sox may in fact stoop to this level

October 11th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Well, hopefully not. But here’s the latest out of the South Side. All home night games will start at 7:11 next season!!!!

Case of the Mondays : Without that movie, what would they say?

June 26th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Bend it like Beckham! Beckham bends in lone goal for England! Bend! Bend! Bend!

Yep, this phraseology was all over the place yesterday on the Web and on TV. Despite puking all over the pitch, Beckham bent (we just had to) in a free kick just inside the left post which lead to a 1-0 win for England over Ecuador.

In other World Cup news, the referee of the Portugal-Netherlands game went a bit loco, issuing 16 yellow cards and four reds during the match. Hey, yet another sports match in which people will blame their squad’s loss on poor officiating instead of not getting the job done. Portugal won the match 1-0.

The White Sox nine-game winning streak finally came to a close last night, as they lost in 13 innings to the Astros 10-9. (Note to self: Don’t leave the Cell in the top of the eight when the Sox are down seven runs. You will miss Iguchi’s three-run homer and grand slam that tied up the game to send it into extras. Whoops.)

If you’re looking for an update on the lingering story that is Jay Mariotti and Ozzie Guillen, get at it here. (Jay made himself the story again!)

And for the record, I am in fact sitting in my underwear as I blog. Take that, traditional and professional media.

Revisiting the Oswaldo Guillen Situation

June 22nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So, this Ozzie Guillen f-word story (not the four letter one, the three letter one, silly) has become a big deal. (A bigger deal than even the mighty Ron Burgundy, in fact.) It’s all over ESPN, the radio, the blogosphere, you know; pretty much anywhere sports opinion disseminates from, you’ll find commentary on it.

Few quick things on it.

First, plain and simple, he shouldn’t have used that word. Even though he wasn’t targeting gay people, as he said, that word in today’s society has negative connotations. Sure, plenty of players and managers talk like this in the clubhouse, but to do it in front of a bunch of microphones, well that’s just plain stupid.

Second, as commenter Sam pointed out, as long as the White Sox are winning, Guillen’s outbursts will most likely continue to be tolerated by the club. It doesn’t seem like Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf came down on him too hard, only telling him he shouldn’t have used that word. The Chicago Sports Review has an excellent take on this situation, essentially saying he is ‘forfeiting his ability to ever manage a struggling baseball team’ because of his antics. I’m going to have to go ahead and agree with their take. If you have even a remote interest in this, I would suggest reading it. It’s one of the better written columns I’ve ever read, regardless of subject matter. (It makes mention of some scholarly book I’ve never heard of, but you don’t have to have read the said book to understand the concept the writer uses to illustrate his point in the column. Phew.)

And third, Mariotti still sucks. I’m glad Guillen is not backing down on that. But for as much as I applaud him for doing that, all he (and the entire White Sox organization, for that matter) are doing is fueling Mariotti’s ego, fame, fortune and essentially his ineptitude as a writer. Really, the best solution for Ozzie and the White Sox would be to just ignore Mariotti. Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson continues to bring up how he doesn’t like him. Everyone knows Reinsdorf and Mariotti have gotten into many feuds in the past. To continue to verbalize it only makes matters worse. Just ignore the dude.

Hell, we’re even contributing to his fame and fortune by posting about it right now. (Well, maybe.)

Oh, and if you need proof Mariotti is not good at what he does, here it is for you. (Again, I highly suggest you take a look at that.)

But all of this is neither here nor there. What’s really important is who would win in a fight between these two loudmouthed bravados. (This is an idea that’s been used on other sites and really since the dawn of mankind, or dinosaurkind, you choose. We’re not claiming to be revolutionaries or anything here with this idea.)

If we have 20 people vote on our poll, we’re claiming moral victory for ourselves. Get at it after the jump. (Height, weight, strengths and weaknesses included!)

CONTINUE READING THIS POST –>

Ozzie Guillen blows a gasket

June 15th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

I haven’t done a post about my White Sox in a long, long time, so hey, check this out. Last night the Sox got blanked by the Rangers, 8-0. (Nothing fun about that.)

A.J. Pierzynski was hit by a pitch in each of his first two at-bats. Fast forward to the seventh inning when rookie Sean Tracey was brought in to reportedly throw at Hank Blalock. He didn’t, instead getting him to groundout. Apparently, this was a mistake. A big, big mistake. And according to the AP/ESPN, here is what happened.

After getting the out, Tracey was removed from the game. Guillen slammed a water bottle to the ground when Blalock grounded out and the manager then brought Agustin Montero in to pitch. Guillen was then seen in the dugout barking at Tracey, who pulled the collar of his jersey over his head.Guillen didn’t address why he screamed at Tracey and had a different explanation why he took the rookie out of the game.”I tried to get Montero ready [to face Blalock] and wasn’t able to. It was a little late,” Guillen explained. “It was my mistake. I didn’t get him up quick enough. I didn’t want Tracey in that situation.”

Tracey refused comment.

A source told the Sun-Times that Tracey was informed he was being demoted to Triple-A after the game. “Ozzie went nuts,” one source told the newspaper.

So yeah, with Tracey refusing comment and what these sources had to say, it’s looks like Ozzie called little Seanie out for being a coward about the whole ordeal - which isn’t very nice. I mean, would you like it if someone threw a baseball at you? No, I don’t think you would. Sure, it’s part of the game and all, but he’s just a rookie. It’s not like he would have ever been asked to do this sort of thing in the minors or at any other point in his career.

Give him a break Ozzie, jeebuz.