I wouldn't normally defend him but Ozzie Guillen is right.

Rock Hard Corn Frog · Jun 23, 2006

About Jay Mariotti that is. Mariotti is a Whiny Bitch!

colleyvillesooner · Jun 23, 2006

Guillen should keep his trap shut. I'm tired of hearing about him and his big mouth.

It's just like Jim Gaffigan said:

"I wish I was ethnic, I'm nothing. Because if you're Hispanic and you get angry, people are like, 'He's got a Latin temper!' If you're a white guy and you get angry, people are like, 'That guy's a jerk.'"

usmc-sooner · Jun 23, 2006

Jay Marriotti is a fag.

usmc-sooner · Jun 23, 2006

colleyvillesooner said:

Guillen should keep his trap shut. I'm tired of hearing about him and his big mouth.

It's just like Jim Gaffigan said:

"I wish I was ethnic, I'm nothing. Because if you're Hispanic and you get angry, people are like, 'He's got a Latin temper!' If you're a white guy and you get angry, people are like, 'That guy's a jerk.'"

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you could always tell them your Irish

Rhino · Jun 23, 2006

I love Ozzie's reasoning that it was okay to call him a fag.

I mean, he goes to WNBA games and Madonna concerts.

GrapevineSooner · Jun 23, 2006

I'm somewhat surprised Guillen was slapped with sensitivity training from Selig.

Though I think that's absolutely ridiculous.

Why don't we order people to sensitivity training for just being jerks? Why are they only ordered there when they utter a racial, ethnic, or sexual orientation slur. Do people think that will actually make a difference?

Or is this just feel-good policy?

GottaHavePride · Jun 23, 2006

Well, Guillen has already said he will apologize to anyone he offended but he isn't going to aplologize to Mariotti.

usmc-sooner · Jun 23, 2006

Rhino said:

I love Ozzie's reasoning that it was okay to call him a fag.

I mean, he goes to WNBA games and Madonna concerts.
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don't be so sensative sweet boy

GDC · Jun 23, 2006

I hate Jay Mariotti with the intensity of a thousand fiery suns.

Gandalf_The_Grey · Jun 23, 2006

If I was gay I would be offended by being lumped with Mariotti too

Scott D · Jun 23, 2006

Gandalf_The_Grey said:

If I was gay I would be offended by being lumped with Mariotti too
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we have a winner.

Mariotti is the worst breed of writer. He writes articles regularly that rip the White Sox but never sets foot in their clubhouse. He's like those reporters who write about how evil the US troops are in Iraq and the injustices they commit daily, without ever actually going to Iraq and seeing what things are like there.

That being said, I also agree that Ozzie kinda needs to be a bit more careful in saying what he's saying...had he stuck with what he said yesterday in the first place about Mariotti being a piece of **** instead of ever calling him a fag, nobody would be talking about this.

Big Red Ron · Jun 23, 2006

What did Jay say to get called a fag?

Gandalf_The_Grey · Jun 23, 2006

He called Ozzie's Mom a MudBlood

Scott D · Jun 23, 2006

Big Red Ron said:

What did Jay say to get called a fag?
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Long Article, but it was the last one he wrote involving the White Sox before Ozziegate. Mind you, if you look at the Chicago Sun Times Sports Section and go through articles by Mariotti over the last 3 years you'll see that 99% of them are unflattering of the White Sox and of Guillen.

Judgment call: Time to worry about Ozzie

June 16, 2006

BY JAY MARIOTTI SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Using a baseball as a weapon is dangerous. Watching Ozzie Guillen order a kid pitcher to retaliate with a weapon is frightening. And when that kid pitcher fails to be a goon-on-demand, prompting Guillen to rip into a humiliated Sean Tracey, I am left to ponder three disturbing thoughts about the Blizzard of Oz.

Has he officially lost his mind?

Are his priorities in sufficient order to manage the White Sox to an encore title?

And is he involved in so many rants and raves and headline-grabbing incidents, about two a week these days, that he's burning all of us out -- including his players?

No man who is thinking straight would pull the megalomaniacal b.s. that Guillen did Wednesday night in Texas. There is a time and place for payback, and with the Sox lucky not to have had more players suspended after the Crosstown Smackdown last month, it was senseless and immature of Ozzie to obsess over the fact A.J. Pierzynski -- there's that name again -- was plunked twice on the arm by Rangers pitcher Vicente Padilla. Guillen needed to put this episode on the back burner, take an 8-0 loss like an adult, focus on why the Sox have so many inconsistent pitching outings and direct his energies toward convincing general manager Ken Williams that trades are necessary.

But when his mind is locked in Blizzard mode, Guillen loses all control. He decided it was more important to settle a score, right then and there, while risking more disciplinary action by an amateurish Major League Baseball judicial system kept busy by Chicago's two clubs. There is little doubt Guillen, as reported, ordered Tracey to throw at Hank Blalock in retaliation for Pierzynski's two plunkings. When Tracey went inside twice but didn't draw skin, Guillen's yanking of the pitcher and subsequent dugout harangue proves he had made a demand that wasn't carried out.

I'd like to report that Ozzie gained a little perspective overnight. Incredibly, he was even nuttier Thursday, questioning why Pierzynski didn't charge the mound to fight Padilla and bemoaning how baseball has wimped out over the years. "I will fight. I'd get my butt kicked, but I will fight,'' said Guillen, echoing the commentary of Hawk Harrelson during the game broadcast. Asked why he didn't attack the mound, Pierzynski, of all people, was a voice of reason.

"We're in a pennant race,'' he said. "We are going to need everyone down the stretch.''

A pennant race? Who knew?

Forget that Tracey apparently responded with tears and the need to cover his face with his jersey, not the image you want to see from a big-leaguer. My concern is that Guillen's in-view tantrums and regular rip jobs are beginning to wear thin in his own clubhouse, even after his success last season as a World Series champion skipper. It's not as though Tracey was ignoring Guillen's edict; twice, he clearly backed Blalock off the plate, keeping in mind it isn't easy being a right-handed pitcher trying to plunk a left-handed hitter. Also, Tracey never has been known for his control, and don't think a rookie can wander in and immediately become an expert hit man. Picking on Tracey in full view of the Ballpark at Arlington cameras was a bad moment for Guillen.

Ball can be a deadly weapon

Players lose respect for a manager who hangs a teammate out to dry. No? The Sox camp isn't exactly airtight these days. When the Sun-Times and the Sox' own Web site quoted postgame sources who leaked that Guillen was furious with Tracey for not nailing Blalock -- "Ozzie went nuts. He had the ***, big-time,'' one source was quoted as saying -- it suggests that secrets are being told out of school. Guillen can't be happy about it, especially after inventing some jive story about being mad because Agustin Montero wasn't ready to pitch in the bullpen. He concocted the tale so he could avoid a suspension from on high. Now, there's a fair chance the case will be investigated and Guillen could face punishment, all because of the snitch. And we know how Oz doesn't like snitches, based on his most recent rant about steroids informant Jason Grimsley and how someone should "shoot the [bleep]'' for revealing details and names to federal investigators.

Just once, I'd like to hear Tracey or another pitcher publicly admit he doesn't enjoy hitting a batter in retaliation. But most won't go there, recalling how Shawn Estes was ridiculed by fans and media in 2002 when he pitched behind Roger Clemens instead of hitting him in a New York showdown. Tracey has yet to comment, though maybe he will after being sent to the minors in a move that was in the works as Williams was acquiring reliever David Riske from Boston. A baseball, in case anyone forgot, is round and hard. In 1920, a pitch thrown by a mean sinkerballer named Carl Mays hit Ray Chapman in the temple and fractured his skull, causing blood to gush out of his mouth, nose and ears. He died the next morning. The career of Tony Conigliaro, a gifted Boston outfielder, ended early when he was beaned in 1967. Fortunately, we haven't had similar horror stories of late, which probably means we're due for one.

Imagine the outrage if a player died or his career ended prematurely because he was victimized by a purpose pitch. Does Ozzie ever think about that? If Padilla was throwing intentionally at Pierzynski -- first time, he definitely was; second time, A.J. didn't get out of the way -- he and Rangers manager Buck Showalter should have the same battle with their consciences. Same goes for the menacing Randy Johnson, who was suspended five games Thursday for intentionally throwing at Cleveland's Eduardo Perez.

Using a baseball as a weapon is cowardly. The players shrug it off and say, "That's the game,'' but many of them are too lunkheaded to know better.

No different than other goons

What's the difference between Guillen asking Tracey to be a goon and John Chaney, the former Temple basketball coach, asking a player to be a goon and commit hard fouls? What's the difference between this and the bounty supposedly placed on Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman in 1989 by Eagles coach Buddy Ryan? Don't forget, Ozzie has an ongoing feud with Showalter, who questioned Guillen's knowledge of the rules as a rookie manager and launched a verbal war.

"[Showalter] never even smelled a jock in the big leagues,'' Guillen said two years ago. "'Mr. Baseball' never even got a hit in Triple-A. There are so many different things he might be jealous [of] ... I was a better player than him, I've got more money than him and I'm better-looking than him.''

Such is the juvenile rancor that causes grudges to linger and purpose pitches to fly.

Baseball seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Players are still using human growth hormone, commissioner Bud Selig is taking out newspaper ads telling fans he cares about steroids and Arizona slugger Luis Gonzalez is upset that a top Diamondbacks executive mentioned there have been "whispers'' about Gonzalez and steroids. Now, we have Guillen prioritizing goonery over common sense.

I'm worried about the man. You should be, too.

Jay Mariotti is a regular on ''Around the Horn'' at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Send e-mail to inbox@ suntimes.com with name, hometown and daytime phone number (letters run Sunday).
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tulsaoilerfan · Jun 23, 2006

Rock Hard Corn Frog said:

About Jay Mariotti that is. Mariotti is a Whiny Bitch!
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Most sports reporters are; they think they are the story instead of the games.

Scott D · Jun 23, 2006

Tell me today's article isn't Mariotti stirring the pot some more. And by today I mean yesterday.

Sensitivity the issue, Guillen the problem

June 22, 2006

BY JAY MARIOTTI SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Try as I do, it's hard to view sports as some sort of guiding light for humankind. You want to believe in this stuff after sitting in a Dallas arena and watching Dwyane Wade, a credit to his hometown and as humble as he is spectacular, become the closest thing we've seen to Michael Jordan. But then you return to Chicago and are dragged into the gutter drain by Ozzie Guillen's homophobic circus.

I'm told the Blizzard of Oz, in one of his tiresome rants, referred to me as a "fag'' Tuesday night, among other niceties. Personally, I can shrug it off as an occupational hazard, knowing I'm called meaner things at the coffee stand every morning. I also know it places me on an extraordinarily long list of people the Blizzard has dissed or launched into, including Magglio ("Venezuelan [bleep]'') Ordonez, Buck Showalter, Phil Garner, Sean Tracey, the Los Angeles Angels, every American League umpire, the reporter he threatened to rub out last winter and, by not showing up at the White House for a ceremony, the President of the United States.

Ozzie? He makes Mark Cuban seem like Virginia McCaskey.

But I am not the story here in the latest chapter of OzFest, a farce that is averaging two new targets a week and will have another co-star as soon as tonight. The story is Guillen's mouth and the warped diatribes of a man who thinks slurs are an acceptable means of retaliation in American life, like one of his dugout-ordered purpose pitches. Twice in less than a year, Guillen has dropped derogatory homosexual terms in his public dealings as White Sox manager. Last year at Yankee Stadium, he claimed to be greeting a friend warmly when he said, "Hey, everybody, this guy's a homosexual! He's a child molester!'' Two New York-area columnists took offense, as they should have, and so did I -- the only writer in Chicago who did, which is often how it works in a town softer and more politically driven by the sports franchises than a genuinely tough, independent sports media town such as Boston.

Obviously, Guillen hasn't learned his lesson about using such ugly language. He hasn't because his boss, Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, is an enabler who is letting Ozzie run amok, whether it's offending homosexual groups that want Guillen punished or saying someone should "shoot the [bleep]'' after Jason Grimsley served as a steroids informant in a federal investigation. Reinsdorf, as I pointed out last year, is co-chairman of Major League Baseball's Equal Opportunity Committee. Years ago, he and Bud Selig led the charge to oust Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott after she made racial and ethnic slurs. Sports and America are better off for that deed, yet where is Reinsdorf when his own manager has slurred the gay community not once but twice? Isn't Reinsdorf hypocritical when he refers to Guillen as "the Hispanic Jackie Mason'' and asks us to take everything he says in a humorous light?

Two-week suspension needed

The time has come for a two-week suspension, long enough for human sensibility and decency to kick in. It's more important the Sox send a message about what they stand for than what Guillen's absence might mean in a pennant race. Let Ozzie think about life a little. Send him out for some professional sensitivity training, not what is being attempted by unskilled shrinks in the public-relations office. Tell him why it's fine to admonish a media person all he wants -- a critic should accept criticism, naturally -- as long as Guillen doesn't step over the line and slur gay groups. Most importantly, explain what happened to Schott, Al Campanis and Jimmy "The Greek'' Snyder when they made insensitive comments.

They were fired, run out of their professions.

I am hardly alone in thinking Guillen, if he doesn't wise up, is headed toward a bad ending in Chicago. As somebody who lobbied hard in print for Ozzie to get the job, I knew he would be a politically incorrect load at times. But little did I know he would become a national embarrassment to a city, a franchise and a sport. The incidents are coming a little too frequently for comfort, and anyone who thinks he's just deflecting attention from his team isn't living on a sane planet. The shame of it is, his antics are taking away from the enjoyment of a rare World Series championship in this town, a title he made happen. As long as the Sox are winning, I suppose there will be enough Neanderthal fans who would defend a manager for an ax murdering. But when a lightning rod starts struggling and losing -- see Bob Knight, Indiana -- even the big bosses lose patience with the nonstop stunts.

Guillen's beef with me involves his belief that if I criticize him, I should rush down to the ballpark immediately and let him litter me with insults. If that sounds like high-school macho nonsense, realize it's the general mentality of baseball clubhouses. Imagine a critic panning a movie, then being required to take a tongue-lashing the next day from an angry Vince Vaughn. Imagine a restaurant critic not liking an Italian joint, then having to show up so the chef can throw meatballs at him. Sorry, guy, I'm not a beat writer who covers the team every day. Tuesday night, I was at Game 6 of the NBA Finals, where I should have been. Next week, I'll be at the NBA draft. Next month, I'll be at the British Open.

If Ozzie has a problem with my schedule, he should behave better so I don't have to write about him.

I might cede to Guillen's wishes, by the way, if Sox management through time had been more professional in controlling numerous incidents in which I was threatened physically in their clubhouse. This, in turn, led to published stories about the episodes and turned me into what no journalist wants to be -- the news -- which led to a Sox-generated perception that I am some evil being who roots for the Cubs. Tribune Co. will confirm that as thoroughly absurd.

Finally, last season, there were death threats and an incident at U.S. Cellular Field involving Carl Everett. Again, the Sox don't even address volatile issues when they involve me and other writers. Until they do, these are the rules they'll have to live by. Consider the latest Guillen flareups to be Exhibit A of why this situation exists.

Self-destruction looming

I treat all Chicago franchises with the same brush. When a team wins, I tell you why, which might explain the scads of recent columns commending Guillen for his baseball leadership, general manager Ken Williams for his aggressive trades and Reinsdorf for his $100 million payroll. When a team doesn't win, I might write why Dusty Baker should be fired, why Jerry Angelo is a hit-and-miss football executive and why the Blackhawks have fallen farther than any franchise in sports. That's what a columnist does.

But no media person walking into the locker rooms of the Bears, Cubs, Bulls or Hawks has been subjected to regular slurs and threats. Isolated incidents, perhaps, but not a running war. Those clubs run professional shops, and when a player, manager or coach has an issue, things are handled with a certain dignity.

In Ozzie's world, you are called a "fag.''

He is the story. He is the problem. And someone better save him from himself before he self-destructs.

Jay Mariotti is a regular on ''Around the Horn'' at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Send e-mail to [email protected] with name, hometown and daytime phone number (letters run Sunday).
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Rhino · Jun 23, 2006

An article that sums up my thoughts pretty well.

Talks too much
We love hearing you, Ozzie. Just tone it down some.
John Donovan - SI.com
Posted: Friday June 23, 2006 1:02PM; Updated: Friday June 23, 2006 1:02PM

Here's the story on Ozzie Guillen: He talks. He's the best talker in baseball. Nobody's even close. Ozzie talks non-stop. To anybody. To everybody. Umpires. His players. Other players. Clubhouse boys. Security guards. He talks to himself.

Ozzie talks to reporters, too, by the dugout. Every single day he talks to reporters. At length.

Ozzie jokes and tells stories and offers up unsolicited opinions. He criticizes. He praises. Whether it's early in spring training or late in the postseason or any time in between, the irrepressible manager of the White Sox always is handy with an answer or a quip.

But here's the problem with Ozzie. Sometimes he'll put his mouth in gear, get it off and running along at NASCAR speed, while his brain is still warming up back in the garage. It happens all the time. And now it has come back to bite him.

How it took so long, I'll never know.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig fined Guillen on Thursday and ordered him into sensitivity training after he called Chicago newspaper columnist and TV talking head Jay Mariotti a "fag." It wasn't a smart thing to call someone, even someone who can be as grating as Mariotti. It was incredibly insensitive. It was totally inexcusable. But it was -- and this is pretty much undeniable -- classic, unshackled Ozzie.

After the punishment was announced, Guillen accepted it without much grumbling, though he was predictably Ozzie about it.

"I'm not going to change," Guillen said. "One thing I'm going to make clear is I apologize to the community. But to Jay? No chance. This thing is on and on for good."

We all love Ozzie talking. He has filled up more notebooks and provided more laughs and insight in the past year than many managers have in their entire careers. Fans, for the most part, love him. His players love him. Ozzie is a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy, even if his views always seem a little skewed from everybody else's.

Guillen can provide an insightful, well-considered point followed by an outright stupid one. He'll give you a belly laugh followed by a painful wince. We -- the enabling media, the fans and the White Sox management -- let him slide most of the time because we've felt that, for the most part, Guillen's heart is in the right place, even if his mouth isn't.

There comes a point, though, when mistakes are repeated too often, when something is said that can't be covered up by a joke, when we no longer are willing to let things slide. We've clearly reached that point. Probably, we passed it a while back.
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AllAboutThe'O' · Jun 23, 2006

gdc said:

I hate Jay Mariotti with the intensity of a thousand fiery suns.
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Only a prick like Mariotti could make me do something unusual: side with Ozzie Guillen.
I wish they could take Mariotti off Around the Horn (and while they're at it, jettison Tim Cowlishaw, too) and I would actually care to watch the show for a change.

mrowl · Jun 24, 2006

how is Ozzie "homophobic" for calling someone a fag?

baseball lost touch with reality years ago, and they are just further pushing away.

I predict another huge fan backlash in this decade, by players strike, owners lock out, or steroid, HGH backlash.

Gandalf_The_Grey · Jun 24, 2006

Yeah, when someone does something really stupid, I usually call them gay...I just don't say it in front of reporters.

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I wouldn't normally defend him but Ozzie Guillen is right.

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I wouldn't normally defend him but Ozzie Guillen is right.

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