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TJ Phaserman

Ozzie, Sox: Chicago's rude, crude embarrassment

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The team with no class almost spun a no-hitter. Filthy as the White Sox and their manager have been, Gavin Floyd somehow was filthier and nastier Tuesday night on the South Side. After Hawk Harrelson jinxed the young man by babbling, "Call your family, call your friends, Gavin Floyd is three outs from a no-hitter,'' well, you'll never guess what happened.

 

Minnesota's Joe Mauer broke it up, cleanly, with one out in the ninth.

 

``I'm just glad we got the win,'' said Floyd, who wasn't allowed to enjoy the moment without teammate Toby Hall smashing a pie in his face.

 

It's just as well. Ozzie Guillen didn't deserve to be bailed out by a classy, polite kid with hair combed across his forehead, low on his brow. It isn't news, of course, that Guillen is the clown doofus of sports, a disgrace to a city, a franchise, intelligent humanity and those of us who must chronicle his arrested-adolescent b.s. to the point of ad nauseum. I'm just wondering how he's still employed. If this was bad standup comedy, I'd understand why a trashy nightclub might hire him to humor drunks for $5.50 an hour.

 

But he's a baseball manager. And since July of 2006, a sample size that has become more truth than trend, his team has largely failed. It's one thing to act like an idiot and win a championship, which causes folks to think you're a crazy genius. It's quite another to act like an idiot and go 124-151, proving only that your act isn't working and that you're killing an organization with your relentless immaturity and gutter-sludge mouth.

 

The Sox can crow all they want about their World Series title, how they beat the Cubs to the holy grail. At least the Cubs still own their dignity as a Chicago institution, as opposed to Guillen, who belongs in one. Thanks to the Blizzard of Oz and his rogue enablers, chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Ken Williams, the Sox have taken the low road so often the last three years that people associate them more with their manager's stunts, slurs and ill behavior than the big trophy itself. The Three Stooges complain often about the Cubs and why they rule the town, relegating the Sox to second-team, inferior-story status even after their glorious 2005 run. The social phenomenon isn't hard to explain.

 

The Cubs are easy to like.

 

The Sox are easy to loathe.

 

The latest episode inside Guillen's clubhouse, involving inflatable female dolls and strategically placed bats in a frat-house attempt to end the club's offensive woes, is an insult to women. This comes after incidents in which he slurred gays, insulted nations, blew off the White House and angered folks in his native Venezuela with his tirade against Magglio Ordonez. So comprehensive is his list of victims, he's almost running out of targets. I cannot think of another company -- another sports team -- that would tolerate this unceasing run of verbal thuggery, especially when he isn't succeeding on the field. If Guillen didn't directly participate in purchasing and displaying the dolls, well, put it this way: He sets the trashy tone. The man isn't exactly stable, which wouldn't bother me if he didn't represent this proud city and a sport that has endured a long steroids scandal and doesn't need dirt of any sort.

 

Yet there was Williams, Reinsdorf's yes-man and the one who signed off on Guillen's hiring, making fun of the episode Tuesday and refusing to issue a formal apology. One of Guillen's favorite words -- hypocrite -- is exactly what he and the Sox have become. You cannot market ``Family Field Day'' on May 17 and a ticket package called the ``Ozzie Plan,'' then let the face of your franchise cultivate an R-rated atmosphere with more F-bombs than a Chris Rock routine. But Reinsdorf, a bitter old man, likes to thumb his nose at the world by letting the Blizzard run rampant, recalling his description of Guillen as ``the Hispanic Jackie Mason.'' And Williams, who doesn't have the guts to talk correct Reinsdorf, only enables Guillen by slapping him on the wrist every time. Hasn't it occurred to the chiefs that Guillen is making them look like feeble teachers who can't control the class clown?

 

``I will assure Major League Baseball that the doll was not violated in any way, shape or form," Williams cracked. ``In all seriousness, it is a little bit of a disappointment because we have proactively tried to -- and just did so this spring training -- organizationally, we brought in some people to discuss a better work environment, whether it's gender issues or racial issues. I don't know what a formal apology on behalf of the club is going to do, other than me assuring everyone we are on top of it and we addressed the issue.''

 

Sure, you did. Just as the Sox and Major League Baseball ``addressed'' matters two summers ago by having Guillen attend sensitivity training, which obviously helped. Reinsdorf and Williams think they're above these issues, when, in fact, the issues define who they are as executives and human beings. Unfortunately, some media fear Reinsdorf and curry his favor, which might explain why WMVP-AM's Marc Silverman -- who seems thrilled to have Reinsdorf on the station's ``Lunch With a Legend'' series -- was more eager to criticize his on-air guest, the Sun-Times' Carol Slezak, than simply interview her about her post-dolls, anti-Sox column.

 

Keeping with his track record, Guillen was too small to issue an apology to the offended. ``If people think we did something wrong, wow. I'm not going to apologize, I'm not going to say I'm sorry,'' he said. ``I don't know what to say. I can't come up with the words because as soon as I say that, that means I'm guilty of something. I'm not guilty."

 

He is guilty as sin, actually, for making a mockery of his craft. Can you imagine such a trail of trash ever being littered in Boston, New York? Could you imagine a manager keeping a job through it all, no matter how many championships he won? As long as reporters have work to do, and as long as clubhouses are open to media, a sports franchise has a responsibility to maintain a civil, orderly, professional workplace. I don't subscribe to any boys-will-be-boys junk when it comes to working environments. If players want to go through ``Slumpbuster'' rituals with inflatable dolls, do it in the trainer's room, where the media can't see it. When you make it public, the organization is judged accordingly.

 

The Blizzard finally might have made sense when he suggested media be banned from the clubhouse. I don't blame athletes for feeling invaded when they're attempting to shower and dress in the presence of reporters, especially in a time of camera phones and other creepiness. I understand the importance of media access, but it's more sensible to bring players into a large interview area before and after games. That's how it is done on Super Bowl media day. That's how it is done at the Olympics. Is it a pain for the media? Sure. But how would you like to be showering at work and have 50 reporters bust in?

 

Besides, it sure beats hanging out in Guillen's den of doom, watching his career disintegrate with every stunt, F-bomb and non-apology.

 

<_< :P

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