By Ari Berkowitz | @WokeUpSABR
Ozzie Guillen (Keith Allison/Flickr)
Since becoming the 37th manager of the Chicago White Sox, Ozzie Guillen has been one of the most controversial figures in all of baseball. Considered to have a good baseball mind by most, Guillen’s fiery personality is what makes him who he is for better or for worse. Not quite Billy Martin, but the combination of success on the baseball field and that fiery passion, is not an everyday occurrence in Major League Baseball.
Guillen was hired by the White Sox in 2004 to replace Jerry Manuel after spending 2003 as a coach on the World Series winning Marlins. In just his second season as their manager, Ozzie led the White Sox to their first pennant since 1959 and first World Series win since 1917. Fitting with Guillen’s idiosyncratic personality, prior to the 2005 season, Guillen claimed the he would retire if the White Sox would win the World Series, obviously he ended up staying.
In normal Guillen fashion, he did not partake in the traditional meeting of the president at the White House following the White Sox’s World Series win. Then in 2006, Guillen called Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Marriotti a fag. In 2010 Guillen attacked Arizona’s new law that dealt with illegal immigrants. He referred to them as “workaholics” and stated that “this country can’t survive without them”. Later in the year Guillen went on the record about how Asian baseball players were treated much better than Latino players. He went on to say how he doesn’t understand why while all Asian players receive translators, their Spanish speaking brethren receive no such thing.
Buy the 2013 Season Preview to read the rest of this article
