Ozzie Guillen: Still Hilarious

Ozzie perfects the art of photobombing

By EAMONN BRENNAN

Updated 12:15 PM CST, Fri, Jun 19, 2009

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Were we a Sox fan, we'd be slightly conflicted about Ozzie Guillen. On the one hand, he did manage the team to a World Series, the first in forever for the franchise. So we sort of love him. On the other hand, it's not like Ozzie won the World Series by himself; his pitching staff came out of nowhere (they threw four complete games in a row!) and his offense crushed home run after home run. On one hand, he's hilarious. On the other, he's kind of crazy, and he says crazy things all the time, and sometimes those things are about baseball and they don't make sense.

See what I mean? Conflicted.

But if there's a good Ozzie and a bad Ozzie, good Ozzie won the week. First, he punked the dumb vendors selling "Ozzie Mows Wrigley Field T-Shirts" by buying one and wearing it around the clubhouse before laughing it off and telling reporters, "I might cut lawns but I don't stand in the rain selling T-shirts." Genius.

Today, a note from Chris De Luca's Chicago Sun-Times piece on the Sox-Cubs rivalry seals the deal: Ozzie Guillen is awesome:

LOOK

Chicago's Biggest Cubs Fans

A group of fans -- it looked like a family of about 10 decked out in gaudy Cubs gear -- gathered on the field during batting practice Thursday and flashed smiles for the camera. The famous scoreboard at Wrigley Field served as the perfect backdrop.

Then, just as the picture was snapped by a Cubs employee escorting the VIPs, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen sprung up behind the group -- unbeknownst to the giddy fans -- and spread his arms wide to provide the imperfect backdrop.

Click. Guillen stumbled away, laughing his mischievous laugh.

If you're that family, that photo is a keeper. Don't put that on eBay, random tacky Cubs tourist family. Take that thing back to Wisconsin or Iowa or Indiana or wherever you're from and frame it. That's a lifer.

As for Guillen, well, what did we say? This is Good Ozzie: funny, caustic, and mischeivous. He's still crazy, but in an endearing way.

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.