This may come as a shock to many of you wonderful readers out there on the Internet, but did you know that sometimes the things White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says can get him in trouble? It's true. The man can be quite the controversial figure in this town.
It's not always the media or members of other teams and organizations who sometimes get their feathers ruffled by Ozzie, either. From time to time, he even gets on his players' nerves. Which is why every spring he holds a meeting with his veterans -- Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko, Jim Thome, and A.J. Pierzynski -- to see if there's anything they want him to change, and that closed door forum happened on Friday afternoon.
Although Guillen insisted afterward that he always has made it a point to meet with his veterans in a private setting, this was the first time in his six years that the so-called ''veterans committee'' had a problem with the way Guillen handled Sox business.
"A couple said they were kind of confused on what I say is 'throwing them under the bus,''' Guillen said. ''The only way I'm going to throw my players under the bus is when they say something to the media that they shouldn't be saying.''
Yes, for as we already know, only Ozzie is allowed to say things to the media that he shouldn't be saying. Though while Guillen's antics get him in hot water more often than some folks like, the truth is his antics are just one act in the circus that is his master plan.
It's not exactly a coincidence that Ozzie's controversies tend to happen whenever the team is going through a bad stretch. We folks in the media are easily distracted.
Along with writing for NBCCHICAGO.com, Tom Fornelli can also be found contributing at FanHouse, SPORTSbyBROOKS, and his own Chicago sports blog Foul Balls. He thinks Ozzie Guillen is a sportswriter's dream.
