Who knew it was so easy to tame Ozzie?
After five World Series broadcasts, we're calling it. Sorry, Ozzie Guillen, but you were not who we thought you were.
Oh, sure, Ozzie's just as quirky and difficult to parse as ever. In the brief periods Fox gives him to talk about baseball, Guillen does manage to sneak in some of that trademark Guillen goofiness, from his black and purple coat in Game 1 to his descriptions of his forays into New York's most hated after predicting a Phillies World Series win.
And sure, Guillen's fixations -- almost every conversation seems to come back to Alex Rodriguez or Pedro Martinez in some way -- are enjoyable enough.
But since 2004, we've come to know an Ozzie Guillen unafraid to say whatever's on his decidedly crazy mind, regardless of the venue. The man has never shied from swearing at a camera, or berating a member of the media, or calling another player a foul name.
That's the Ozzie we love! We want that Ozzie all the time. That's not the Ozzie we're getting on Fox's World Series broadcasts. Instead, he's been replaced by a rather pleasant, congenial fellow, who sometimes doesn't even want to take the bait.
For example: Monday night, when playfully told that manages love to be second-guessed, Guillen replied that yes, he did love to be second-guessed. Then he stopped talking. We're pretty sure he choked back a big loogie, which was funny, but it could have been so much more. Was Ozzie being sarcastic? Was he preparing a tirade about how the media didn't know what it was talking about? If that comment happens in the White Sox clubhouse in June, something awesome is going to happen.
Last night, nothing awesome happened. Nothing at all happened. Much the same as Guillen's first four World Series broadcasts. Which, knowing Ozzie like we do, is a huge disappointment. We expected so much more.
Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. He is the editor of Yahoo! Sports's college basketball blog The Dagger and a contributor to Inside The Hall. Follow him at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com, or on Twitter.
