Rather than hail the hiring of longtime 3B Robin Ventura as new White Sox manager, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Joe Cowley earlier today portrayed the dismissal of Ozzie Guillen and subsequent elevation of Ventura as a coup orchestrated by pitching coach Don Cooper (“‘Coop is obviously now the GM, assistant GM, manager and pitching coach the way he’s been acting the last few weeks,'” is how Cowley quoted an anonymous inside source). General Manager Kenny Williams took to local TV to issue the following rejoinder, as quoted by the rival Chicago Tribune :
During WSCR-AM 670’s “Mully and Hanley” show, Cooper said, “Everything Joe Cowley wrote is a bunch of lies, which makes him a liar. (Cowley has) been trying to find something to get me. For a while I knew this was coming. I knew something was coming. I didn’t know the circumstances.
“I haven’t talked to Joe Cowley in two years because I pulled him aside and told him, ‘I don’t like what you write. You’re hurtful. You’re uninformative, uninteresting and unfunny to me. Why would I want to help you do your job when you’re hurtful to the people I like and people I know?'”
Cowley’s comments, Williams (above) said, are “completely unfair, number 1, because Don Cooper was a large part of making us a successful organization and helping us win a world championship,” Williams told WGN-Ch. 9 Friday morning. “His area has been one of the most consistent areas in all of baseball for the last 10 years so I think it’s unfair to him and it’s just wrong.”
Just to make sure the level of discussion stays appropriately civil, former Chicago newspaperman-turned-eBook-salesman Jay Mariotti let it slip via Twitter that “Wliiams (sic) physically threatened me on rooftop of Wit Hotel 3 years ago”, but not before adding, “Williams and Cowley are both assclowns”. Alright, then.
(ADDENDUM : Quotes from WSCR’s “Mully & Hanley” program were originally attributed to Kenny Williams in an earlier version of this post. This was not the Tribune’s error, it was entirely mine. – GC)