Ozzie Guillen Has a New Target

In my last post about Jose Contreras' trip to the disabled list, I marveled at the fact White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was able to string together 75 consecutive words without swearing. I'm pretty sure that's a career high for the Sox skipper. Though it also worries me because that's not the Ozzie Guillen we've all come to know and love.

Thankfully, even though Ozzie's cleaned up his language a bit, he has yet to stop holding grudges. Particularly against Texas Rangers, as Rangers closer C.J. Wilson joins a group that includes Buck Showalter and Vicente Padilla before him as somebody who just ticks Ozzie off.

A week ago today, in the last game before the All-Star break, Wilson came on to close a game in which the Rangers had a four-run lead. Well, after allowing three-runs to score, Wilson finally got the third out of the inning with the bases loaded and proceeded to celebrate as though he'd just won the World Series. Ozzie didn't like it and said something then, and now a week later with the Rangers set to come to Chicago, Ozzie would like C.J. to know he still hasn't forgotten it.

"You can be cocky, be yourself or have your own showtime," Guillen told Chicago reporters Friday. "But when you don't respect the opposition and do what he did, that's not professional. That's the reason I was screaming to him. When you're nobody and show people up like that. ... Wait till you're somebody in baseball, and then do whatever you want to do.

"Mariano Rivera never showed anyone up," Guillen said. "You have your own style, but you don't show up another team. That's when I started screaming. He should read my quote about whoever pitched in that game should be embarrassed because when you bring in the closer with a [four]-run lead, and you almost blew it, and you're acting like you're [Lee] Smith or Goose Gossage. That's embarrassing when you're cocky and have [nothing]."

I agree with Ozzie as far as I don't really enjoy when pitchers start pumping their fists and screaming after doing their jobs (K-Rod in particular annoys the hell out of me). At the same time, as long as hitters are going to stand there and admire their home runs, pitchers should be able to admire their strikeouts. It's only fair.