I respect Ozzie Guillen for what he accomplished with the White Sox last year. That doesn’t stop me from thinking he is a jackhole. No, I don’t really care that he didn’t go to the White House with the rest of the White Sox, even though I have my suspicions that it was a lot more of a political statement than he and Hugo Chavez want you to believe. No, I am not too upset that he promised last summer that he would retire if the White Sox won the World Series, only to reneg on that promise once they actually own — we all say things knowing that we will probably never be forced to back them up, and on the rare occasions that our team doesn’t underperform like we were counting on them to, we weasel out of our statements. What’s bothering me about Ozzie today is his interview in Sports Illustrated, in which he takes shots at A-Rod.
From the article in the New York Daily News:
“Alex was kissing Latino people’s (butts),” Guillen, who’s from Venezuela, said in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. “He knew he wasn’t going to play for the Dominicans; he’s not a Dominican!”
Rodriguez, who has dual citizenship in the Dominican Republic and United States, was linked to both teams’ rosters at various points over the past few months and also said once that he simply wasn’t going to play in the tournament because choosing a country to represent was too difficult. After talking with MLB and WBC officials, however, he opted to play for the Americans, and Guillen apparently found his flip-flopping to be disingenuous. “I hate hypocrites: He’s full of —,” Guillen said. “The Dominican team doesn’t need his (butt). It’s the same with (Nomar) Garciaparra playing for Mexico. Garciaparra only knows Cancun because he went to visit.”
No offense, Ozzie, but guess what? Remember that time when the first thing you said after winning the World Series was “Viva Venezuela!”? And then remember how, two months later, you became an American citizen? Yeah, so maybe you aren’t one to be talking about who is and isn’t a certain nationality.
(On a sidenote, I think it’s a little bit coincidental that Guillen chose two of the greatest shortstops of this era, A-Rod and Nomar, to take shots at, considering that Guillen himself was one of the most mediocre shortstops ever to last 16 seasons in the league.)
Are A-Rod and Nomar hypocrites? I don’t know, but I don’t think I have ever met anyone who didn’t have a little hypocrisy in them. Is Guillen a hypocrite? I’m sure he is, just like the rest of us — or maybe more.
Look, Ozzie, I don’t have anything against your becoming a U.S. citizen, but let’s face facts, son: you can’t have it both ways, and you definitely have no room to talk in this whole nationality debate.