From the Chicago Sun Times’ Doug Padilla.
No longer able to hold his tongue, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen sounded off on Magglio Ordonez on Sunday morning after another round of comments critical of Sox management.
In a story in Sunday’s Chicago Sun-Times, Ordonez praised his new owner with the Detroit Tigers, Mike Ilitch, and in the next breath said he doesn’t understand why his former owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, won’t pay the money to keep his best players.
Enough was enough for Guillen, who has grown tired of reading and hearing about Ordonez’s shots at the Sox.
“This is bull [bleep],” Guillen told the Sun-Times, pointing to a copy of Ordonez’s quotes. “This is girl [stuff]. Every time there are a couple of [reporters] over there with a piece of paper and a pencil in his hand, is he going to talk about the White Sox? Come on, just move on. Just play your game and forget about the White Sox.”
Guillen is most bothered by the fact that Ordonez is making himself out to be the victim when he was offered three separate contracts by the Sox last season, including at least one after he went down for the season with a knee injury.
He also was irked that Ordonez has implied the Sox aren’t interested in winning and that Ordonez says the Sox tried to exaggerate his injury to make him less attractive to other suitors.
“Don’t come around and make this thing look like crap when you’re not right, when you know you’re lying,” Guillen said. “Don’t lie. You can say whatever you want: I want to make some money, I hate Kenny Williams, I hate Jerry Reinsdorf, I hope they die — whatever you want to say. But don’t come out every day and say things to make sure you look good with the fans.
“[Don’t] say that they [Williams and Reinsdorf] are horse [bleep] and I’m not. Because now the fans and the media, they will hear what I have to say, and they know I won’t bull-[bleep] them.”
“I’d rather see the player say, ‘Listen, I wanted out of there because I wanted more money,”’ Guillen said. “I respect that. When Alex Rodriguez said he wanted out of there because ‘I want to win,’ Seattle won 100 games with him [actually 91 in 2000] and they won 116 without him [in 2001]. If you want to win, that’s a winning team. You left because of the money, and Magglio left because of the money.
“You’re going to tell me all the cities he could go to, there is a better city than Chicago? He was a legend here with the White Sox. A lot of people wanted him to finish his career here with the White Sox, and count Ozzie Guillen in that group.”