Some typically unguarded pearls of wisdom from White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, as quoted in this week’s Sports Illustrated by S.L. Price.
“People say, ‘Joe Torre: genius.’ ‘Greatest manager ever: Tony La Russa … Lou Piniella.’ I say they’re not good baseball managers. Nobody’s a good baseball manager. They talk about Jim Leyland: ‘Oh, my god, Jim Leyland….’ Jim Leyland quit! Sparky Anderson? Sparky Anderson was horses— for 10 years with Detroit. If you don’t have a good ball club, you’re not going to be a good manager. People forget Joe Torre lost with St. Louis and the Mets. The New York Yankees? I could manage that team. Lou Piniella, the best ever? Why don’t you win with Tampa Bay? My point is not that he can’t manage his ass.”
“There’s two kinds of education: book smart and street smart,” he says. “You put me at Harvard, at the podium to talk to the people graduating, I know what I have to say, and I know how to say it. But you put Bill Gates in the middle of Caracas, Venezuela? He will s— his pants. He will die.”
Alex Rodriguez, the U.S.-born Yankees third baseman who mulled over playing for the Dominican Republic in next month’s World Baseball Classic? “Alex was kissing Latino people’s asses. He knew he wasn’t going to play for the Dominicans; he’s not a Dominican! I hate hypocrites: He’s full of s—. The Dominican team doesn’t need his ass. It’s the same with [Nomar] Garciaparra playing for Mexico. Garciaparra only knows Cancún because he went to visit.”
In Nomar’s defense he has been to Baha too.
It’s obvious that Ozzie has anger management issues. I pity his children.