Ozzie will not be candidate for Sox manager job originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Only one name has officially been crossed off the list of candidates to replace Rick Renteria as the White Sox manager.
General manager Rick Hahn decided to nip a torrent of speculation in the bud Monday, the day the team announced it had parted ways with Renteria and would be searching for a new skipper, declaring that former White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén would not be returning to his old post.
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Guillén has been a fan-favorite choice to replace Renteria since before the White Sox even made the decision to move on to a new manager. Guillén helmed the White Sox for eight seasons, from 2004 to 2011, leading the team to a World Series championship in 2005. He became a franchise and Chicago sports icon not only for ending the White Sox 88-year championship drought but for his entertaining personality, something he's won fans over with again as an analyst on NBC Sports Chicago's pregame and postgame coverage.
But despite a flood of social-media suggestions that the White Sox bring Guillén back to manage a team with World Series expectations, Hahn said the team wouldn't be going down that path.
"We have tremendous respect, appreciation and love for Ozzie for what he did for this organization during his tenure as manager, as well as thrilled with the fact that he is still around as part of the organization," Hahn said Monday. "But Jerry (Reinsdorf), Kenny (Williams) and I have spent a lot of time thinking this through in terms of the fit going forward, and we don't feel that at this time, with this team, with where we're at and the best way to get to that next level, we didn't feel that Ozzie would be the right fit."
