Ozzie Guillen is a classless asshole.

This loser comes out DURING THE GAME and gives this "choke" sign to the Indians bench, management and fans. I have always hated the Sox and now I absolutely LOATHE them. They are my new Yankees.

Didn't someone tell Ozzie that he was 2 losses from leading his own team to the most storied collapse in all of baseball history? What a complete moran.

Sorry, ever since it became clear the National league was going to do all it could ot shut down the Expos, I stopped paying attention.

AL Central champs.............barely.

I like the Red Sox, for some reason I don't know, I was worried there for a bit. :)

For comparison, The Yanks have a 0 game lead, winning it on a technicality. The Angels have a 7 game lead. Atlanta has a 2 game lead. San Diego has a 5 game lead. Only the Cards have a significantly greater lead, with 11--which, by the way, is the only division the Sox would not win if they were in.

Eh, they're both classless assholes!

But I'm sure there are some people with impecable manners, yet are quite snotty as well. I don't know really.

Witness the Cle/Chx series before this one - aside from Beuhrle (or however the hell you spell his name), their pitching isn't THAT great and they've won a lot of one-run games. Manny and the Red Sox will crush this sorry team, count on it.

Yeah, Fozzie, you had a 15 game lead in August and almost got punked by a team with a $41 million dollar payroll. THAT'S something to brag about.

contact me after the red sox lose the series

"yeah, Ozzie, you've got the team with the best record in the American League. THAT'S something to brag about."

Their pitching is GREAT.

This coming from a Twins fan.

I could care less who WINS any of these series, but I'll tell you what... I've got a fairly big interest in who LOSES one of them.

This team has been playing out of its ass all year long and when they play the Red Sox, I hope they get embarrassed.

By that do you, perchance, mean "having the best record in the AL, and being one game off of having the best record in the MLB?"

Because if you do, then, yeah, man, I agree.

Glad to see that a baseball thread got you going. We have a baseball group too. You should go to that one too.

As for your comment, it just depends on how you phrase their accomplishments. You say "having the best record in the AL, and being one game off of having the best record in the MLB".. and I say "Had a 15 game lead on a team and almost blew due to an exposed pitching staff and poor management." I might also add, "Won more one-run games than any other club except down the stretch."

You obviously like them, what is you defense of Guillen, since that was the original thread anyway?

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/4922744

It pissed me off. And since I hadn't actually watched the game on TV, I listened to a sports talk radio show in the morning hoping they would talk about it, and they did.

The individuals on the radio were also calling for his head, saying that he should apologize for making the gesture to the INdians bench and fans. That prompted my post.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But that's the story.

I've been here before for nearly 2000 posts.

Anyway, I don't doubt that Ozzie's a terrible manager. When your team is slumping, saying "We flat-out stink" and "Someone needs to take charge of this team" not only makes things worse, but reflects poorly upon your abilities as manager. He pulls pitchers at random and refuses to consider changing around the order, regardless of what happens. For God's sakes, he kept Everett at the #3 slot as DH all year, despite his inability to connect bat to baseball.

But yeah, one-run games happen when you're a team like the Sox: Great pitching and mediocre hitting. Fortunately their pitching is so good it covers for the unexceptional bats. Their pitchers got shaky at the end of the season, but now the question is if they recovered, or if Cleveland just decided to commit mass suicide.

My defense of Guillen is twofold:
1. You didn't prove it happened, or even link to anyone who did.
2. If it did, which I doubt, I'm guessing that was to mock all the Chicagans who've been taunting him with "CHOKE!" since August started. As in, "Look how we're choking now!"

They always try to pretend that there isn't "another" team close by.

Never mention the Cubbies to a Sox fan. They hate each other.

People said it was because he was hispanic, which could attribute to it, but Tony Pena, who did the best with what he had, never acted like a fucking clown.

When did this happen? None of the recaps of the weekend series mention this at all. In fact, the ESPn recap from yesterday has Guillen complimenty Grady Sizemore as he trudged off the field deprssed.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=251002105

I can find nothing about this in the Trib or the cleveland papers.

So, where did this photo come from?

nothing in any newspsper, and seeing how the trib (which owns the cubs) loves to ozzie-bash doesn't have anything, I doubt it.

the Whities into the ground like tent pegs. The Red Sawx have always been my #2 favorite after the Twins, and Guillen's juvenile idiocy reinforces my already festering dislike of the White Sox, which began with Ken Harrelson's insipid "good guys" blather.

1. Care to share with us WHEN he did this? The DU way is to discuss the WHOLE story, not taking things out of context and leaving out proof of your claims.

2. The White Sox did NOT CHOKE. The Indians PLAYED AWESOME for a 2 month stretch. The White Sox played about .500 during that period. Hardly choking.

3. The White Sox starting pitching has been AWESOME for the past 2 weeks. Who the hell do the Red Sox have that can pitch?? Pedro? Gone. Lowe? Gone. Foulke? Injured. Schilling? He is not the same old Schilling.

I am a White Sox fan, but I personally am not that much in love with Guillen. He has done other boneheaded things. Also, I heard a theory that he likes to get all the heat on him with his outspoken ways and therefore removes all the pressure and attention from the players. Maybe he does this stuff as part of a master plan.

Mourinho, the manager of English soccer team Chelsea, is brash, loud, and sometimes annoying. He is also a brilliant tactician and a proven winner.

Guillen is everything in that first sentence. The second one... not so much. Bunts and hit-and-runs give away outs, and with a team with OBP issues that already scores about 40% of its runs off of the homer, they give away too many outs to be effective. And that's down to the manager.

I have watched the White Sox go nowhere with a team that waited for the 3-run homer for many years. Give me bunts and running anyday. Especially with a team that does not hit well. When you dont have Ortiz/Manny or Arod and Sheff, you just cant stand around waiting for the big homer all the time.

All the giving away of outs wouldn't be so bad if they had some decent OBP guys, but they don't. The only guys they have that get on base are also the guys that hit the homers.

This White Sox fan rooted passionately for the Red Sox when they played the Yankees, despite Schillings shilling for Bush. I honestly don't know why the White Sox are being dumped on so badly in this thread particularly by some Red Sox fans. I think comparing the Sox to the Yankees is beyond absurd. No team in the League is completely asshole free. And if this did happen (I can't find anything to support it), it was probably in reference to the "choking" that the Chicago papers kept saying would happen with the White Sox, something that Ozzie had been upset about from the beginning.

Normally I don't get involved in these kinds of things, but I don't want the White Sox to become the Yankees of the lounge. One person posts something like this could make it trendy to bash them in the Lounge, and whether or not your a fan, I don't think the White Sox deserve it.

Are you certain? Or are you just a Sox-basher?

it's not like "Class" and "White Sox" have ever been in the same sentence, in any era

Ozzie Guillen has a little fun with Indians mascot Slider and Tribe fans during a pitching change in the sixth inning. (The Lorain Journal/AP)

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20051002&content_id=1234259&vkey=news_cws&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws

He was messin with the mascot who probably gave the choke sign to him first!

It didn't take him a long time to get a managerial job, hispanic or not. He spent 5 years as a coach and was 40 when he took over, 2nd youngest in the majors.

I've followed his career since he was a rookie and he is a fun guy. Tells it like it is, likes to mess around, he was the clubhouse pronkster, still is in many ways. He respects the game and the way it should be played.

They have gone 42-34 since the all star break, hardly a choke. just that Cleveland was the hottest team in baseball. They still ended up with the best record in the AL and close to the Cards for all MLB. As for the pitching, Jose Contreras was just named the pitcher of the month for September, joining Garland, April and Buehrle, May, to become the 1st team since the '91 Twins to have 3 pitchers win that honor.

He and his team have been accused of choking for the last month, every damn interview he was asked about it, asked how tough it is. His pat answer was: "Being in Venezuela with 6 kids working for 25 cents an hour is tough, this is a game."

Some other info on him:

Community Involvement:
Among his charitable activities in 2004, attended the ground breaking of the White Sox Ballfield Complex in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood of Chicago, a youth complex featuring a Miracle Field for children with disabilities ... supported the clubs youth programs by attending the Chicago White Sox Training Academy summer camp kickoff event at Brookfield Zoo ... spoke to business leaders at the Hispanic Business Leaders Forum at U.S. Cellular Field along with Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker and Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith ... received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Excellence in Leadership Award in January 2005 ... has headed the Ozzie Guillen Foundation for the last six years ... through the foundation, has helped kids with AIDS and cancer and from underpriviledged backgrounds ... writes a weekly column for Universal in his native Caracas, Venezuela ... donated $200,000 to the mudslide victims in Venezuela in the winter of 1999 ... purchased tickets each season for his Ozzies Amigos program to help underprivileged youth ... was honored by the city of Chicago with Ozzie Guillen Week for 9/5-11/94 for his efforts in embracing Chicagos Latin American community.

Sheesh, keep an eye on him, he's a piece of work but he is fun.

On edit: I forgot to add, somehow his personal hotmail address got out early in the season and he wrote (thru an interpreter) personal replies to hundres of fans.

About how he was implying that the Indians were doing the choking.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/4922744

That's the one that I saw.

He's a happy go lucky guy, I'll warrant that the frames before and after that pic there is a huge grin on his face. He'll go bitch out an ump and on the way back to the dugout shrug his shoulders and smile as if to ask, "how did i do?" Hey, he's sometime hot-blooded, some say he makes amphetimines jumpy, but he's a big kid at heart.

My favorite was when Steve howe was pitching for the Dodgers after his 3rd or 4th cocaine incident. Frank Robinson, Giants manager, stood on the top step of tha dugout and 'scratched' or actually made sniffing gestures from his fingers to his nose (like he was doing some blow). Howe complained and the home plate ump warned Robinson to quit it. The very next pitch, Robinson did it again. Got tossed from the game without ever saying a word.

I LIKE hating the Sox. This just helps. I have to admit, it doesn't take much.

Ever.