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General Discussion => Talk Zone => Topic started by: No? in Austin on June 16, 2006, 11:52:32 am
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I don't care about the WhiteSox... almost to the point of non-existent team in some way. But on a peripheral basis, this flap about Ozzie Guillen and Sean Tracey started to bother me for some reason. Why? I wasn't really sure.
Maybe it was the father in me that made me want to really voice my opinion on Mr. Guillen as a manager and as a person.
As a person, nothing in his character so far has impressed me. He's a personable sort, but in the case of character, he allows the personality to get in the way of such. Sure, he's juat a manager, so what's the big deal? Well, honestly, not a big deal at all. People like Guillen run thier course in terms of character pretty quickly in life. Terry Collins or Hal Lanier come to mind. Great baseball minds, questionable characters comes to mind as well. The crossover from being a manager in strategy and a manager of men is very thin and in today's major league baseball, a little of both is needed. Ozzie Guillen has, to his advantage, a lot of clout. Winning a world championship will bring that to your table, character or lack thereof not withstanding. So this particular incident will probably not be anymore important to anyone who judges character in baseball (and most people don't) than the time Guillen called out A-Rod and Garciaparra. I had this uneasy feeling that GM Ken Williams might of gotten to Guillen and asked him if he was out of his freaking mind to go after another man's character. It was ironically a questionable character move on Guillen's part. You know the drill, "that's just Guillen" or "you like folks to speak their mind honestly" and "he tells it like it is", blah, blah, blah. Whatever, Guillen apologized later for that but it was just an inkling that Ozzie may be the personality type that just might disavow character.
So now this with Tracey.
By and large, the incident is being passed off as a managerial right based on the unwritten rules of baseball in terms of taking care of your teammates. Yeah, no big deal and if seen in that light, it really isn't. If Joe Torre were to do this, I would be floored though. But if I heard Torre had a private meeting with his pitcher and talked to him about it in stern yet professional tones, I would not be surprised at all. In his book (Joe Torre's Ground Rules for Winners : 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks, and Success), Joe Torre outlines his philosophical way to managing a team... and this in not necessarily applicable to only baseball. In fact, if you manage *people*, you would probably appreciate Torre's book. And perhaps feel really uneasy watching the dressing down from Guillen and Tracey. I admit I had a fatherly moment watching it too. Is this the way you treat *people*? What are the other 24 men thinking? Why is Perzinwhatyoumightcallit so important any way... doesn't he bring about most of the angst against him by himself? Lots of things went through my mind. Much of which was a dislike for Guillen admittedly.
Sean Tracey had a dream many a minor leaguer has, to make it to the Show. Now an egotistical, vengful, somewhat lacking character manager who won a world championship thinks it is no big deal to dress down said kid and then send him back down to the minors. I wish for Tracey a quick return to the bigs, perhaps even under Guillen if necessary. Why? Because eventually Guillen's antics will catch up to him like a Hal Lanier. One day, it won't be a minor league he'll bully. Perhaps one day, he'll get back to picking on superstars in the game. Perhaps the characer issue will rise up again. And how he continues to behave or not will do in Ozzie Guillen. Hopefully not, people change and decide being an asshole isn't the best route to managing people.
Sometimes they don't.
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Tracy did not get sent down because of this. The WS had already made a deal for Riske and Tracy was getting sent down anyway. Notwithstanding, Guillen should be lambasted for publicly taking apart Tracy in front of his teammates and in front of a television audience. I would never treat an associate like that. Ever. Even if they fucked up beyond imagine. Very poor management skills indeed.
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Tracy did not get sent down because of this. The WS had already made a deal for Riske and Tracy was getting sent down anyway.
Nothing in what I read said GM Ken Williams was going to send down Tracey any way, but it may be the case, so point conceded (with my skepticism in a way).
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Notwithstanding, Guillen should be lambasted for publicly taking apart Tracy in front of his teammates and in front of a television audience. I would never treat an associate like that. Ever. Even if they fucked up beyond imagine. Very poor management skills indeed.
Tracey didn't fuck up. IMHO of course. The bigger question not being asked is "Why is this emperor running around in his underwear?". Ozzie Guillen deserves to be called an asshole, again IMHO, by the media. But because he can hide behind some sort of whack unwritten rule that was violated by the youngster, he gets yet another free ride on his character. Teflon Ozzie if you ask me.
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bothers me too. that loose cannon should be suspended.
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sure.
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Tracey didn't fuck up. IMHO of course.
Agreed completely.
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Teflon Ozzie if you ask me.
This is purely because Ozzie is good for business. Good with a quote, good at generating controversy - the perfect ESPN manager.
The fact that he's an asshole is irrelevant to them.
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The fact that he's an asshole is desirable to them.
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What I think is slightly humerous about the whole situation is that Tracy has terrible control and hits a batter around once every seven innings. (The ML average apparently is nearly once every 20 innings.) Then he's actually told to hit a batter and he can't do it.
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What I think is slightly humerous about the whole situation is that Tracy has terrible control and hits a batter around once every seven innings. (The ML average apparently is nearly once every 20 innings.) Then he's actually told to hit a batter and he can't do it.
If he *can't* do it, then Ozzie Guillen is beyond an asshole, he's an outright dispicable human being.
If he *won't* do it, then Ozzie Guillen is just an asshole.
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What I think is slightly humerous about the whole situation is that Tracy has terrible control and hits a batter around once every seven innings. (The ML average apparently is nearly once every 20 innings.) Then he's actually told to hit a batter and he can't do it.
If he *can't* do it, then Ozzie Guillen is beyond an asshole, he's an outright dispicable human being.
If he *won't* do it, then Ozzie Guillen is just an asshole.
Well didn't he actually throw two pitches way in, that just missed Blalock? I only saw one quick replay, I think he grounded out on an inside pitch. My thinking is that Guillen should be fined and suspended, and perhaps Kenny Williams (I believe Tracey being sent down was announced a whole day ahead of the Riske trade). If nothing happens to Guillen it would seem pretty hypocritical of MLB, IMHO.
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Well didn't he actually throw two pitches way in, that just missed Blalock? I only saw one quick replay, I think he grounded out on an inside pitch.
Yup. Blalock did what you want to do to avoid getting dotted. Some batters who get dotted will turn their back towards the pitch and absorb the blow. Blalock jack knifed out of the path of the pitch.
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My thinking is that Guillen should be fined and suspended, and perhaps Kenny Williams (I believe Tracey being sent down was announced a whole day ahead of the Riske trade). If nothing happens to Guillen it would seem pretty hypocritical of MLB, IMHO.
I think the whole affair is being looked at as a team handling their own business. It is also being looked at as adherence to the unwritten rule. But what I believe to be the bigger issue at hand for Ken Williams or any WhiteSox true believer is this: Ozzie Guillen is not a good person and borderline a manager who will eventually *hurt* your team than help them.
In that case, the court of public opinion would do much better to convict Guillen than the mlb offices.
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I think the whole affair is being looked at as a team handling their own business. It is also being looked at as adherence to the unwritten rule.
But if that's the case, why did RJ and Torre just get rung up? I don't really see the difference, but maybe there's some aspect that I'm missing.
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This is just another example of the "news" effect the mass media has on any topic they cover. I'm at the point, sports wise, that if it didn't happen on the field (I suppose the dugout should count as "on-field"), I don't care to read about it. The fact that Guillen gets a pass while Johnson gets a 5 gamer is laughable. I didn't see either game first hand so I don't have a solid foundation for too strong of an opinion on the "to bean, or not to bean" debate, let alone a shithead dressing down a rookie for not choosing as they would choose.
Which leads me to our local soap-opera, which I think is similar in that the media is flogging the equine into mortality. "Rocket's Relaunch/Return" saga is boring. Good for him, he's doing things for the minor leaguers and they clubhouses. I come from a background where you don't seek acknowledgement for your charitable acts. That's half the act itself. All I want to see is him pitch for the Astros. The other stuff has zero meaning beyond glad-handing. I swear, if I didn't know any better, I'd say he's preparing for a career in politics after baseball.
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I think the whole affair is being looked at as a team handling their own business. It is also being looked at as adherence to the unwritten rule.
But if that's the case, why did RJ and Torre just get rung up? I don't really see the difference, but maybe there's some aspect that I'm missing.
Exactly, if MLB is really trying to crack down on retaliation, then I think they especially need to address the culture that leads to it- and the Guillen thing seems like a pretty blatant example of someone bullying his players into embracing the "eye for an eye" mentality, thereby fostering that culture.
As an aside, this reminded me of the Yanks-Mets game a few years back where Shawn Estes (new to the Mets, and not around for any of the Piazza incidents) threw a couple behind Clemens, but couldn't hit him. But he did hit a homer off Roger in that same game, and won, IIRC.
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The really scummy thing about this is that Tracey was just being used to soak up a suspension (See Johnson, Randy). I wonder if the thought of having to pay a major league fine on a AAA paycheck had anything to do with his poor aim. If he had actually nailed the guy, would Ozzie have picked up the tab? Yeah... uh, right.
As ugly as this is, it could have gone even worse for him if he had hit his target. The Riske trade would have gone through... Tracey would have been suspended and then sent down... and he would have been essentially locked out of the majors for the rest of the year. What point would there be in calling up a kid to fill in for an injury or get through a tough patch in the schedule when the first thing he'd have to do upon arrival is sit out a five game suspension?
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Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun Times
"No man who is thinking straight would pull the megalomaniacal b.s. that Guillen did Wednesday night in Texas."
The Link
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Thanks for putting me in the uncormfortable position of agreeing with Jay Mariotti.
I will now throw up.
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I don't care about the WhiteSox... almost to the point of non-existent team in some way. But on a peripheral basis, this flap about Ozzie Guillen and Sean Tracey started to bother me for some reason. Why? I wasn't really sure.
Maybe it was the father in me that made me want to really voice my opinion on Mr. Guillen as a manager and as a person.
As a person, nothing in his character so far has impressed me. He's a personable sort, but in the case of character, he allows the personality to get in the way of such. Sure, he's juat a manager, so what's the big deal? Well, honestly, not a big deal at all. People like Guillen run thier course in terms of character pretty quickly in life. Terry Collins or Hal Lanier come to mind. Great baseball minds, questionable characters comes to mind as well. The crossover from being a manager in strategy and a manager of men is very thin and in today's major league baseball, a little of both is needed. Ozzie Guillen has, to his advantage, a lot of clout. Winning a world championship will bring that to your table, character or lack thereof not withstanding. So this particular incident will probably not be anymore important to anyone who judges character in baseball (and most people don't) than the time Guillen called out A-Rod and Garciaparra. I had this uneasy feeling that GM Ken Williams might of gotten to Guillen and asked him if he was out of his freaking mind to go after another man's character. It was ironically a questionable character move on Guillen's part. You know the drill, "that's just Guillen" or "you like folks to speak their mind honestly" and "he tells it like it is", blah, blah, blah. Whatever, Guillen apologized later for that but it was just an inkling that Ozzie may be the personality type that just might disavow character.
So now this with Tracey.
By and large, the incident is being passed off as a managerial right based on the unwritten rules of baseball in terms of taking care of your teammates. Yeah, no big deal and if seen in that light, it really isn't. If Joe Torre were to do this, I would be floored though. But if I heard Torre had a private meeting with his pitcher and talked to him about it in stern yet professional tones, I would not be surprised at all. In his book (Joe Torre's Ground Rules for Winners : 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks, and Success), Joe Torre outlines his philosophical way to managing a team... and this in not necessarily applicable to only baseball. In fact, if you manage *people*, you would probably appreciate Torre's book. And perhaps feel really uneasy watching the dressing down from Guillen and Tracey. I admit I had a fatherly moment watching it too. Is this the way you treat *people*? What are the other 24 men thinking? Why is Perzinwhatyoumightcallit so important any way... doesn't he bring about most of the angst against him by himself? Lots of things went through my mind. Much of which was a dislike for Guillen admittedly.
Sean Tracey had a dream many a minor leaguer has, to make it to the Show. Now an egotistical, vengful, somewhat lacking character manager who won a world championship thinks it is no big deal to dress down said kid and then send him back down to the minors. I wish for Tracey a quick return to the bigs, perhaps even under Guillen if necessary. Why? Because eventually Guillen's antics will catch up to him like a Hal Lanier. One day, it won't be a minor league he'll bully. Perhaps one day, he'll get back to picking on superstars in the game. Perhaps the characer issue will rise up again. And how he continues to behave or not will do in Ozzie Guillen. Hopefully not, people change and decide being an asshole isn't the best route to managing people.
Sometimes they don't.
I agree with 99% of this.
My only (minor) quibble - I don't think Ozzie is a comp for Lanier and/or Collins, who were withering, humorless, cold-blooded technician/assholes. The Vern Rapp school of manging.
Ozzie is funny as hell sometimes, and has a well-developed sense of the absurd. Neither of these could be mentioned in the same sentence with Collins or Lanier.
And Guillen doesn't seem calculating about it, like those other guys did. My sense of him is his problem stems from saying shit and then worrying about the impact later. Sometimes it is relatively harmless or trivial, sometimes it can be malicious, as in this case.
The inability to monitor the transfer process from thought to speech is no an admirable trait. It is a failing, and you are rightly whaling into him here for it.
But I don't think Ozzie deserves to be demonized. I can't speak unequivocably about Lanier, but I can say Collins certainly deserved it. He was malevolent, and no one but no one who played for him wanted anything to do with him. Ozzie's got a ways to go before he gets to that.
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... and he would have been essentially locked out of the majors for the rest of the year.
Guillen has purposely done this to a number of players he didn't see eye-to-eye with. Example: Kelly Wunch.
Sure, he's an asshole, but a baseball manager is basically a dictator. His team was playing horribly and his tirade was mostly to fire up his team and instill an "us against them" attitude that's been pretty much missing in the Sox players since they won the World Series.
It was pretty cruel to do that to a rookie, but hey, baseball's a really cruel game.
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Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun Times
"No man who is thinking straight would pull the megalomaniacal b.s. that Guillen did Wednesday night in Texas."
The Link
Eggszcellent! I should've checked with Mariotti before I indicted the media as a whole. My bad on that one. I just got the feeling from the sampling I witnessed yesterday of "no harm, no foul" on Ozzie's part.
It is this that bothered me most. Did no one see that this man was being a classless a-hole on display? Or am I too sensitive to seeing a grown man dress down a younger man who he has a chance to mentor and help grow into not only a performer but another good citizen? I think a little of both, so I freely admit my sensitivity and expectation that a man like Ozzie can behave much better than this.
I felt for young Mr. Tracey.
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... and he would have been essentially locked out of the majors for the rest of the year.
Guillen has purposely done this to a number of players he didn't see eye-to-eye with. Example: Kelly Wunch.
Sure, he's an asshole, but a baseball manager is basically a dictator. His team was playing horribly and his tirade was mostly to fire up his team and instill an "us against them" attitude that's been pretty much missing in the Sox players since they won the World Series.
It was pretty cruel to do that to a rookie, but hey, baseball's a really cruel game.
"us against them", "baseball's a cruel game"? What a load of crap.
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... and he would have been essentially locked out of the majors for the rest of the year.
Guillen has purposely done this to a number of players he didn't see eye-to-eye with. Example: Kelly Wunch.
Sure, he's an asshole, but a baseball manager is basically a dictator. His team was playing horribly and his tirade was mostly to fire up his team and instill an "us against them" attitude that's been pretty much missing in the Sox players since they won the World Series.
It was pretty cruel to do that to a rookie, but hey, baseball's a really cruel game.
And my own opinion on this is that in the long run it will hurt the WhiteSox team more than help it. I know my Hal Lanier comparison was stretching it, but the outcome of Lanier's regime with the Astros and his same dictator mentality (not to mention his cruelity) was getting to the players.
It wears thin and as was mentioned before in history... "they imploded from within".
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baseball's a really cruel game.
It's a very difficult and demanding game, yes. But cruel? Only if the people involved make it so...
You need to be tough to excel in baseball... but you do not need to be a son of a bitch... even if the conventional wisdom holds otherwise. That is one of the most screwed up things about professional sports culture... cruelty and toughness are assumed to be the same thing...
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Ozzie's got a ways to go before he gets to that.
You're right that Ozzie has the persona that was lacking in both Lanier and especially Collins. Ironically, Collins got a gig *after* his Astros tenure and just reinforced what was his failing in leadership previously. Only this time he did it in LA (or near thereof) for more to see if you will. Lanier never got another chance and perhaps because his caustic ways went well beyond the boundaries of decency that is important in leadership. The "hard, but fair" method of management helps a lot. Ozzie does have the personality and that will buy him time. Perhaps even sweep things under the rug.
But maybe this is about seeing the ugly side of personality without the substance side of life in leadership. Character and integrity (the substance) built as a foundation for said personality will make for a great leader in Ozzie. Lacking integrity and character, or at least in this case, a firm display of it, is upsetting.
And I'm not even a WhiteSox fan too!
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Can someone explain this to me from the AP article?
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After Wednesday night's game, Guillen claimed he was angry because he wanted to get reliever Agustin Montero into the game to face Blalock.
Does that make sense to anyone or did the writer make a mistake?
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I think in Mariotti's article he also mentioned that the other reliever wasn't ready in time for Blalock's AB, so Guillen was "forced" to go with Tracey, who was ready. Kinda odd that he would have a reliever get up and ready but feel like he was forced to use said reliever.
Anyhow.
That's how I read it.
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And it just keeps coming:
'Guillen calls columnist Mariotti homosexual slur'
The Link
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Guillen said to reporters when referring to Mariotti before Tuesday's game with the Cardinals, "What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag."
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Guillen defended his use of the term "fag" by saying this about homosexuals and the use of the word in question: "I don't have anything against those people. In my country, you call someone something like that and it is not the same as it is in this country.''
Guillen said that in his native Venezuela, that word is not a reference to a person's sexuality, but to his courage. He said he was saying that Mariotti is "not man enough to meet me and talk about [things before writing].''
Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago.
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...attends WNBA games
In-Freaking-credible! He is teflon!
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More and more, the word that comes to mind with Guillen is "fraud".
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attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert
These two things alone warrant a suspension.
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...attends WNBA games
In-Freaking-credible! He is teflon!
Its that voodoo he practices that makes him invincible.
This is too funny...
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Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago.
Wow. I thought you had made up that last line. There is sumthin not quite right with him.
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I thought the whole commentary was fabricated. My incredulty led me to a google search, which led me to his insane rantings...
"fag" just means "lacking courage"...in venezeula?? Certainly there is no word "fag" in venezuela, so if you are goign to pick up the american word you might want to learn the connotations as well.
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Hopefully Guillen take a page out of Sammy's book and pretend not to speaky Ingles
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He's gonna have to claim memory loss, too. I heard about this on the drive home:
The Link
To end the homestand, he gets to stare across the field at Houston Astros manager Phil Garner, who Guillen said wouldn't even shake his hand during the World Series last year and treated Guillen with little respect.
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He's gonna have to claim memory loss, too. I heard about this on the drive home:
The Link
To end the homestand, he gets to stare across the field at Houston Astros manager Phil Garner, who Guillen said wouldn't even shake his hand during the World Series last year and treated Guillen with little respect.
Guillen will cost the White Sox clubhouse in the long run. Mariotti was right to cite the questions being circulated by players about the manager. Ozzie has made himself bigger than the game or the team and he seems to revel in this "look at me, see how much of an asshole I can be!" attitude.
Good for him, but he'll lose in the end... to his very own players who will be fed up with it all in the near future. And Ozzie will claim that it wasn't him but the players who were all wrong in that fiasco to come too.
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Mariotti's response: Mariotti
Calls for a two-week suspension.
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He's gonna have to claim memory loss, too. I heard about this on the drive home:
The Link
To end the homestand, he gets to stare across the field at Houston Astros manager Phil Garner, who Guillen said wouldn't even shake his hand during the World Series last year and treated Guillen with little respect.
Garner says Guillen needs help
The Link
Plus the crazy Venezuelan has another situation with Cards pitching coach Duncan
The Link
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Fuck Ozzie Guillen for making me agree with Mariotti AND Drinkin' Dave.
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[image]http://www.deadspin.com/assets/resources/2006/06/mariottiisadouche.jpg[/image]
Mariotti does have panache though..
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Fuck Ozzie Guillen for making me agree with Mariotti AND Drinkin' Dave.
And now we get to see MusicMan's head explode. How about Bud Selig?
Selig orders Guillen to take sensitivity training
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Selig is, as usualy, a day late and a dollar short.
This warranted a supsension.