Afternoon Baseball

We've talked about his foolish mouth before.
But now, he's doing a number of stupid things.
1. Calling out columnists with expletives and a certain word used only, at best, in disdain, and at worst, in hatred, toward gays. Calling out columnists is bad enough; most people know they are obnoxious. The way he did so compounds the initial error.

2. Apologizing, but basically saying that he meant what he said.

"I shouldn't have mentioned the name that was mentioned, but I'm not going to back off of Jay," Guillen said, using another profanity to describe Mariotti, a contributor on ESPN's "Around The Horn."
"The word I used, I should have used something different. A lot of people's feelings were hurt and I didn't mean it that way."

Good one, Ozzie. If only those damn people wouldn't get offended at the "name" he used, there would be no problem. (And saying "name" instead of "slur," "insult," or even "word" is almost another slight -- as if "fag" was a name for gay people, just not one in common usage).

3. Pulling the card of misunderstanding vis a vis language and culture. He's been in America 20 years or so, is a citizen, and only when he says something idiotic does his command and knowledge of English and its vernacular disappear. Convenient. Really, it's that he knows getting exposed as an SOB, not just a free-thinking manager, is the problem. Yet, reining it in doesn't seem to be an option in his mind.

We're not even mentioning the possibility that he sent someone to the minors for not hitting an opposing batter. I can tolerate that, because almost no one, from players to managers to umpires to executives, seems to understand how the retaliation system work for decades. Ozzie definitely gets that, if little else.

But don't excuse Ozzie. Don't go overboard, perhaps; he doesn't need to be fired, and signaling out one guy he clearly dislikes for other reasons is a far cry from calling all gays "fags" or the like. But remember that Ozzie knows exactly what he's doing and exactly what he's saying. He's not just simply overemotional ("hot-blooded Hispanic" stereotype problems aside, it's not true in Ozzie's case), and he's far from dumb. He simply feels he's bulletproof. And in some ways, he is right now.

But things such as this will only hurt him in the end -- besides legitimate grievances people will hold against him, Ozzie is fast creating a collection of people who will simply want to bring him down out of spite. And when the White Sox are not on top of the world anymore, that group will step into the void to take Ozzie down. And they may just succeed. Whether that coup will be justified or not won't matter because Ozzie will have destroyed any good will he's built up over the years.

Turn it around, Ozzie. Turn it down. Save yourself.