Guillen Leaves a Foul Stench

Ozzie Guillen likes to make out he's a fun guy and a "character." He says he's old-school and a traditionalist. Some have warmed to him, saying he's a breath of fresh air in a cliché-ridden sport.

Guillen isn't a breath of fresh air. He's a rancid foul stench, polluting a game that is in urgent need of cleansing.

Guillen and his apologists like to point to his Venezuelan background, stellar playing career, and World Series ring as justification for his "eccentricities." He hides behind cultural differences and language misunderstandings as soon as anyone picks him up on his ramblings.

That's pure BS. Guillen has lived in the United States long enough to understand what calling a guy a "fag" means. And his record as a player or manager is absolutely no defense, though the redneck element amongst White Sox fans, of which there are many, will no doubt disagree.

In actual fact, Guillen's actions reveal him as a posturing coward. He struts around with the tired, old, clichéd South American machismo image that looks ridiculous anywhere other than Buenos Aires or Miami, but retreats behind fake apologies and "misunderstandings" as soon as he's challenged.

Jay Mariotti, the reporter on the end of Guillen's latest outburst, isn't the issue here. Mariotti has been around Chicago long enough to look after himself, especially against a man who seems to like others, in the form of rookie pitchers, to do his fighting for him.

The issue is whether baseball has the strength of character to send a message to a man whose ego is so inflated that he thinks he's beyond reproach.

Bud Selig, who must be desperate to take a break from the drugs-mire he's been embroiled in for what seems like years, can prove his own Wisconsin-machismo by suspending Guillen for 30 days. Nothing else will suffice or the out-of-control Guillen will take it as baseball's seal of approval for his "straight-forwardness."

"We're looking into it," Richard Levin, spokesman for Major League Baseball said of the incident, declining further comment. He said he didn't want to speculate on the possibility of MLB-ordered sensitivity training.

Not a good start for an administration attempting to counter claims of weakness and complicity towards drug usage.

Guillen should have been suspended after being captured on TV ripping rookie pitcher Sean Tracey after he failed to plunk Hank Blalock during a Texas rout of Chicago last week. He wasn't because baseball is run by weak-willed administrators and played by men who believe in an outdated system of payback and silence.

What is it with baseball and plunking? Vicente Padilla hits AJ Pierzynski twice on the arm, probably at least one of those times deliberately. Pierzynski is not a popular man around baseball's clubhouses, but he was unhurt and didn't feel the need to charge the mound to protect his manliness.

This wasn't good enough for Out-of-Control Ozzie, who orders a young kid with control issues to plunk Blalock, a completely innocent bystander in all this.

Please, all you Bob "Mr. Baseball" Brenly traditionalists out there, tell me why Blalock deserved to have a baseball thrown at his head or body deliberately, an action that could draw a jail sentence if committed on the street? I can see why AJ would go to Padilla and punch his lights out after the game, or even during, at a push. But why has Blalock got to have his life or career threatened by a kid who couldn't hit a barn door from 30 feet away?

Tracey failed in his task and got chewed out, embarrassingly, by Guillen, who then (cowardly) offered the lame excuse that he was upset a relief pitcher wasn't ready to go to the mound. At this point, Guillen should have got a minimum of five days for ordering his guy to throw at a batter, the exact punishment that (equally-cowardly) Randy Johnson got for throwing at Eduardo Perez.

If Guillen felt so strongly about this, why didn't he charge the mound himself and confront Padilla? Or confront him after? Instead, he whines to reporters about the game "wimping-out" and, the next day, calls out Pierzynski for not charging the mound.

Most of the opinion from fans on this matter backs Guillen and his call for Tracey to plunk Blalock. I'm not surprised by that. A lot of baseball fans like the machismo element of the sport, just as some hockey fans like the fights more than the goals.

There are a number of baseball fans who would soil their pants if confronted by a Vicente Padilla fastball — or Vicente Padilla himself. But they can be tough guys vicariously, by giving their stamp of approval to throwing a baseball at an innocent man's head and eulogizing over idiots like Guillen and their "payback mentality."

Guillen can talk all he likes about courage. He claims Mariotti doesn't have the courage to talk to him before and after he writes columns about the White Sox.

Mariotti is a sports writer who is paid to offer analysis and opinion. He's not there to suck-up to a man of such fragile self-respect he needs a preening dandy like Mariotti to hang on to his every word and action like a besotted teenage girl.

Guillen doesn't understand what courage means. Courage isn't haranguing a young kid on national TV. It isn't winning a World Series or having a good baseball career. It isn't collecting a huge salary for making a couple of line-up changes and chewing a lot of gum or tobacco.
Courage is what Pat Tillman had. It's what Hilda Hubbard, an 82-year-old woman I've known since I was 15, has and needs while she fights a battle against cancer. It's what countless people around the world have as they fight wars, disease, and poverty.

Maybe one day Guillen will be in a situation where he needs genuine courage. He's yet to prove he possesses anything more than small-mindedness and cowardice.