Oz vs. our boy

[LosMediasBlancas]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay011.html

 

It would be nice to see Oz be above it all and not respond, but somehow I don't see that happening. This is gonna be a good one, grab some popcorn.

[WilliamTell]

Mariotti is back to his old form. After actually being nice and giving props to Frank, he does this. Not surprising though.

[Texsox]

I love the irony. I cannot think of a player that left here saying anything nice about the franchise. I cannot blame that on Mariotti. I thought it was funny reading Ozzie's own words.

 

But Jay is wrong. We are not a major market team. We are #2 in a split market, putting us on par with the Milwaukees of the world. We deserve what we are getting, a string of economically reasonable, breaking even, second place seasons with a strong desire to rid ourselves of any superstars and achieving the holy grail of balance, 25 guys all earning $2.7 mil per year.

 

Maggs, the team made an offer even after you were injured, STFU and play hard for the Tigers. It wasn't like OZ or Fisk or S. Alomar where the team said, we're finished with you, hit the bricks. The treatment of Fisk IMHO, is the worse treatment a HoF player ever received. Everyone on the team grab a seat on the plane, not so fast Fisk . . .

[AnthraxFan93]

Mariotti is back to his old form. After actually being nice and giving props to Frank, he does this. Not surprising though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

After so fat reading 1/2 the article how is he up to his old form? Proving that Ozzie did the same thing as Maggs is doing and thenOzzie turning around saying that it is right thing to do??

[RibbieRubarb]

At least I stayed consistent

 

 

Oh Jay...you slay me

[Dick Allen]

Both Marriotti and Rogers have similar articles this morning, which exposes Ozzie as being full of it. If the White Sox organization needs or wants to respond to Magglio's comments, they would be better served not having it's mouthpiece being someone who,at least at one time, felt exactly the same way Magglio is feeling, and is on record stating that.

[Texsox]

Both Marriotti and Rogers have similar articles this morning, which exposes Ozzie as being full of it. If the White Sox organization needs or wants to respond to Magglio's comments, they would be better served not having it's mouthpiece being someone who,at least at one time, felt exactly the same way Magglio is feeling, and is on record stating that.

 

IMHO, the major difference is Maggs was offered contracts, Oz was not. Something Jay, I am certain, realized and ignored. While they said the same thing, I will give OZ some slack for having more of a case than Maggs.

 

There isn't a bigger Maggs suppporter here, but it's time for Maggs to STFU and play hard for the Tigers. The Sox offered about as good of a contract as they could. Could he have gotten even more? Yes, and he proved it. I thought both sides did their best, and fouls were not flagerant until ST started. Then Maggs opened the can of whoop ass and it's going to turn on him.

 

The best thing he could do to stick it to the Sox is not with his mouth but on the field. Make the All-Star game, hit .325 30 HR 120 RBIs. Grown up, all of you. (baseball people, not the good posters here) Geez, this is like 2nd grade. did you hear what Maggs said about you? Really? well here's what I have to say about that.

[retro1983hat]

But Jay is wrong. We are not a major market team. We are #2 in a split market, putting  us on par with the Milwaukees of the world. We deserve what we are getting, a string of economically reasonable, breaking even, second place seasons with a strong desire to rid ourselves of any superstars and achieving the holy grail of balance, 25 guys all earning $2.7 mil per year.

 

 

We may not be in the Red Sox, Yankees or Cubs world but we are not Milwaukee either. We are middle of the road. Our TV contract is one of the highest in baseball. Average ticket price also is very high. Not just in terms of payroll, but in terms of what teams actually make and can spend I believe the hierarchy goes something like this:

 

1. Yankees

2. Red Sox

3. Cubs

4. Mets

5. Dodgers

6. Mariners

7. Orioles

8. Angels

9. Braves

10. Houston

11. Giants

12. Phillies

12. White Sox

 

JMO!

[southsider2k5]

We may not be in the Red Sox, Yankees or Cubs world but we are not Milwaukee either. We are middle of the road. Our TV contract is one of the highest in baseball. Average ticket price also is very high. Not just in terms of payroll, but in terms of what teams actually make and can spend I believe the hierarchy goes something like this:

 

1. Yankees

2. Red Sox

3. Cubs

4. Mets

5. Dodgers

6. Mariners

7. Orioles

8. Angels

9. Braves

10. Houston

11. Giants

12. Phillies

12. White Sox

 

JMO!

 

Compared to much of baseball our ticket prices are pretty cheap. Browse some of the other teams tickets if you are curious, but the Sox are more than reasonable for the market we play in. Heck just check the Cubs prices if you don't believe me.

[beck72]

The score is running tape on Ozzie talking about Mariotti and Maggs now

[AnthraxFan93]

The score is running tape on Ozzie talking about Mariotti and Maggs now

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Is Ozzie mad at those Kids?

[beck72]

Didn't address Mariotti and I guess Phil Rogers' hit piece straight on. Yet Ozzie was still a little hot under the collar about some of the charges coming from the media. Hard to understand.

 

Said Maggs is a liar. Talked about his situation leaving the sox, about wanting to take a pay cut to stay w/ the sox

[beck72]

Boers and Bernstein calling Mariotti "eddie munster", is a liar as well.

 

B + B said Phil Rogers has no credibility, saying Selig is OK and calling Ozzie a hypocrite

[MurcieOne]

ozzie is ozzie.... you really need to take everything he says in that context. I love him and hope he's here past this year.... but he has a serious case of foot in mouth disease.

[beck72]

Here's Rogers' piece. Sounds like Rogers has issues w/ Ozzie.

***********************************************

 

Guillen two-faced in ripping Ordonez

Tough to reconcile attacks with own rant vs. Sox in '98

 

BY PHIL ROGERS

Published March 1, 2005

 

 

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The transformation seems complete.

 

Ozzie Guillen, still the only major-leaguer I've seen smoke a cigar during pregame stretching, apparently has gone from outspoken shortstop to just another company man.

 

Maybe he wants to be the White Sox's manager for life. Why else do you take on Jerry Reinsdorf's fights? And how else do you explain Guillen summoning righteous indignation toward recent comments by a confused Magglio Ordonez about his financially driven departure from the South Side?

 

No one says the Sox had to pay Ordonez $15 million a year indefinitely, especially in light of the serious knee injury that limited him to 52 games last season. In fact, given the club's spending limits--reasonable with their middle-market attendance and revenue--they made the right decision to let Ordonez walk.

 

But why keep beating him up? And why turn Guillen loose as an attack dog?

 

Come on. This is silly.

 

The manager who went off on Ordonez at least twice Sunday to reporters after reading some less-than-explosive quotes from Ordonez is a 7-years-older version of a guy who himself did one of the all-time torch jobs on the Sox.

 

While Ordonez was at the top of his game a short time before the Sox allowed him to walk away, Guillen had gone downhill for six years before then-general manager Ron Schueler decided not to exercise a $4 million option for his services in 1998. Guillen played three more seasons with three different teams but never again got 300 at-bats.

 

The point is, this wasn't a veteran who was getting a bad deal. It was a guy near the end of his career who was being moved aside to start a youth movement, even if history shows he was right to raise an eyebrow about his replacement, Mike Caruso.

 

Yet I couldn't wait to call my sports editor after interviewing Guillen at the Baltimore Orioles' camp in the spring of 1998. His quotes were much more provocative than anything Sammy Sosa said at the same Ft. Lauderdale Stadium last week, and the Sosa-Dusty Baker feud makes Ordonez-White Sox seem like a C-SPAN snoozefest.

 

When that 1998 story ran in the Tribune, the Sox either removed or defaced a photo of Guillen that hung in the hallway of their new clubhouse in Tucson, Ariz. To be honest, I can't remember which.

 

But either way, the manner in which his remarks were received makes it remarkable that club Chairman Reinsdorf and his GM, Ken Williams, hired Guillen to manage the White Sox and that he would come out swinging at Ordonez, a countryman and friend, for exercising freedom of speech.

 

Consider Guillen's candor that year.

 

On Jerry Manuel, who had been hired to replace Terry Bevington as manager: "Anybody they get there, he'll look like a genius after that fiasco last year. They could put [trainer] Herm Schneider there."

 

On an infield featuring Frank Thomas at first, Ray Durham at second and either Benji Gil or Caruso at shortstop: "That's going to be some kind of ugly. ... The guys on [the Baltimore] bench are better than the guys in their lineup."

 

On Robin Ventura, who was eligible for free agency after that season: "I hope Robin gets out of there as quick as possible. I know Robin doesn't want to be there. ... I don't think they're going to trade him this quick. They will trade him during the season. I don't think they want everything to go bad in spring training."

 

On the Sox organization: "They're all fake. I deserved better--not because I had been there a long time, but because I did a lot for them. It was my fault. I did all those things when maybe I shouldn't have. ... They talk about being fan-friendly, media-friendly--that's what I am. They give Albert [belle] all that money, and he doesn't do anything for them. They won't give me $500,000, and that's my organization."

 

That's funny. The quotes from Ordonez that seemed to anger Guillen most were about the White Sox giving contracts to people coming in from outside the organization instead of taking care of their own.

 

Sound familiar?

 

When I saw Ordonez at the Detroit Tigers' camp last week, he seemed like a guy who wanted to get on to the future, not rehash the past. He answered my questions and in doing so raised one or two of his own about his old organization. The best was about deferred money in contracts: "`We pay you in 2020?' What the heck is that?"

 

But he hardly seemed interested in challenging Reinsdorf or anyone else in Chicago to a cage match.

 

I didn't use his specific quotes about Guillen because they were so down the middle of the road. He only seemed sorry that he hadn't been able to be around him more.

 

After all, Guillen was the first to campaign for Ordonez. In a story I wrote in 1997, he said the White Sox should have invited Ordonez to their major-league camp but didn't because he was "not a first-round draft choice, and he has an ugly Latino name."

 

Guillen periodically tells me that the quotes in that story got him released. I don't know if he's joking or serious. Same way with the ones about Ordonez, although the stories I read Monday didn't indicate he was laughing.

[southsideirish]

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 1, 2005 -> 03:37 PM)

I love the irony. I cannot think of a player that left here saying anything nice about the franchise. I cannot blame that on Mariotti. I thought it was funny reading Ozzie's own words.

 

But Jay is wrong. We are not a major market team. We are #2 in a split market, putting  us on par with the Milwaukees of the world. We deserve what we are getting, a string of economically reasonable, breaking even, second place seasons with a strong desire to rid ourselves of any superstars and achieving the holy grail of balance, 25 guys all earning $2.7 mil per year.

 

Maggs, the team made an offer even after you were injured, STFU and play hard for the Tigers. It wasn't like OZ or Fisk or S. Alomar where the team said, we're finished with you, hit the bricks. The treatment of Fisk IMHO, is the worse treatment a HoF player ever received. Everyone on the team grab a seat on the plane, not so fast Fisk . . .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I can think of a few that have said very nice things about the Sox organization when they left.

 

Harold Baines

Joey Cora

Greg Walker

Richard Dotson

Todd Ritchie

Billy Koch

Carl Everett

 

Ozzie Guillen - Let me say this, I don't remember him making those comments when he left. I remember us giving him plenty of chaces to come back and be a statring shortstop after that devastating knee injury. There is also a huge difference between Magglio complaining and Ozzie going nutso after being released. Ozzie was making those comments because he was released and he WANTED to be here. He didn't want to leave. Magglio wanted to go and he wanted more money. Ozzie didn't want to leave and wanted to be a White Sox forever, and when he realized his career with the White Sox was over he went a little psycho. I think that is a huge difference.

Edited March 1, 2005 by southsideirish

[Texsox]

I like the Phil article better and it highlights their journalistic differences. Jay clearly enjoys taking swipes are JR and Co. Phil seemed more matter of fact about it.

 

Still Oz deserves this and it will blow over by Thursday unless Oz keeps it alive.

 

Funny and sad stuff.

[mreye]

He is a Grade A, bull-[bleeping] hypocrite.

 

Do they teach this in journalism class? :headshake

Edited March 1, 2005 by mreye

[southsideirish]

This is my favorite quote from the Mariotti article:

 

At least I stayed consistent. That's more than I can say for the Blizzard of Oz. I urge him to zip his lips, cure his amnesia, stop worrying about Ordonez and try leading the Sox to only their second division title in a dozen years

 

I think Marriotti has amnesia. Has he ever stayed consistent on any issue ever? I think some people need to do some research and see how many times he has contradicted himself.

[southsider2k5]

Do they teach this in journalism class?  :headshake

No

 

Which is why Kotex boy has no idea about it.

[southsider2k5]

This is my favorite quote from the Mariotti article:

I think Marriotti has amnesia. Has he ever stayed consistent on any issue ever? I think some people need to do some research and see how many times he has contradicted himself.

 

I was going to a while back, but they don't save the ST archieves for free. YOu have to pay to see the old ones.

 

I ought to start saving his columns.... That is if I can get my cats to stop pissing on them...

[daa84]

seriously this is the problem with the damn media. They are trying to make this thing a much bigger issue than it really is. the circumstances under whcih ozzie and magglio left are completely different. magglio was offered a contract and was hurt, there should be no harm in how he left. ozzie prolly should never have said those things, and he realizes it now, but you know what, its 7 years later. he learned from his mistakes, and is along with kenny williams share the passion about this team that makes white sox fans unique. mariotti and rogers, please. quit being those guys in the media.

[marsh]

I don't mind this Ozzie stuff at all. It focuses all the attention on him and away from the players. It puts Ozzie in the spotlight and lets the players go about their business.

[SoxFan562004]

I agree with Terry Boers about the Phil Rogers article.... Anyone working for the Tribune calling someone a "company man" is an absolute joke

[LosMediasBlancas]

I don't mind this Ozzie stuff at all. It focuses all the attention on him and away from the players. It puts Ozzie in the spotlight and lets the players go about their business.

Good point. Either that, or the team lacks a story.