At a recent sports blog convention I attended, I heard a couple speakers refer to Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen as “The Diego Maradona of Major League baseball.” He was also called brilliant. Perhaps he’s both; or perhaps you might find it redundant to say he’s both similar to Diego Maradona and brilliant.
Either way, after the jump are some philosophical nuggets and golden soundbites Guillen gave the media last week.
Also, in reference to the title above, “Gestalt” is defined by Merriam-Webster as:
a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts.
By Paul M. Banks
On being straight-forward with his players…
“I tell the players how horsesh*** they are right away. I don’t tell them “oh, you’ll be alright,” I tell them be alright right now, we need you! Players play for them, and when you put it together they play for the team. I manage the team, not a baseball player. I have to be the best for the team, not for an individual player.”
On the difference between how players and managers react after the game…
“When we go home, I go over the lineup and think what happened? What’s going on? Cooper will say why didn’t I get Peavy ready? Why can’t I get Buerhle to go seven?
Those guys?! (the players) They don’t even care! They don’t think about Ozzie, they think about us when we don’t put them in the game.”
A reporter asked, do they care about an 0-4?
“They don’t care about is Ozzie going to get fired because I’m 0-4, they care about their stats, they care about I’m 0-4, I’m not going to make $2 million next year. I PLAYED THE GAME. And that’s not their fault- that’s human. But Greg Walker, Ozzie Guillen, Don Cooper they will think about those guys after the game after it’s over.”
More on the differences between players and coaches post-game reflection…
“That’s why I go off on them, because they’ll be in there watching a stupid basketball game, a stupid football game, and we’re sitting in the coaches’ room almost CRYING”