Something you believe that very few people do?
There are any number of safe and careful places Ozzie Guillen could have gone with this answer when asked in spring training. But the manager of the White Sox doesn’t do safe and careful. What fun is that? So Guillen didn’t say he believed in everlasting love, second chances or the designated hitter. He settled on this:
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“I’ve got a real weird religion.”
Weird?
“Santeria,” he said.
It’s a bloody religion, imported from Africa. Guillen believes in animal sacrifice.
Heck, if Chicago fans had known it would work like this, they might have endorsed human sacrifice.
You kill animals, Ozzie?
“Back in my country, yes, I do,” Guillen said.
He realized how this sounded and blurted, unsolicited, just in case you didn’t like it:
“Too bad.”
You kill with your own hands?
“I pay people to do it,” Guillen said.
What kind of animals?
“Depends on what you need,” he said.
And finally:
“You bleed, I’m there.”
The Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Indians have been sacrificed, and here stands a triumphant Guillen, wiping the blood off his sword and smiling, always smiling. He doesn’t much care what you think. He keeps saying what he thinks, sometimes without thinking. He’s loud, emotional, honest and very, very confident. He guesses that there isn’t anyone in his sport who has more fun than he does.
Last season he went to the mound to visit a pitcher just because he told his kids that they would get a chance to see him on national television.
“I’m the manager,” he said. “I can do that.”
This season, during the playoffs, he went to the mound for a pitching change, and he didn’t hold up his right arm for a righty or left arm for a lefty. He put his arms way out to his side. Bring me the fat one. It works as a request for his reliever or his religion. And it is what makes Guillen a good communicator–efficient clarity.
“Bull” is one of the animals he sacrifices.
“Don’t be a hypocrite,” he said.
Most annoying thing in the world?
“When players lie to me,” he said. “When people make excuses and lie to make money.”
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He has been able to do what no Sox leader has in half a century. Makes you marvel at what the Marlins have done, doesn’t it? Two titles in the last decade while the Sox have had no titles since 1917? Guillen was the third-base coach of the 2003 Marlins.
“Best team I’ve ever been around,” he called those Marlins.
But these White Sox–his White Sox–are now going after that crown.