It’s unlikely that any team could glide gracefully to a 123-loss season. The Chicago White Sox currently find themselves on pace to break the modern record for futility in Major League Baseball, currently held by the expansion New York Mets of 1962, who went 40-120.
Ozzie Guillen, the last man to manage the White Sox to a World Series championship, is now somehow managing to make the situation even more awkward.
Guillen is now a pre- and postgame analyst on NBC Sports Chicago, the White Sox’s regional sports network. Never one to shy away from speaking his mind, Guillen has done more than inject his personal commentary into the team’s travails lately.
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Guillen recently opened up about his desire to get his old job back before the team’s current manager, Pedro Grifol, was hired prior to the 2023 season — a decision that, in hindsight, doesn’t look so great. And Guillen hasn’t been afraid to let viewers know it.
“I gotta go to psychologist tomorrow,” Guillen said Sunday, when Chicago lost its 20th consecutive game to the Minnesota Twins. “A few years ago, I was happy, man. Now, I’m bitter and weird … Because I don’t think I was a bad manager, but they picked Pedro in front of me.”
After clarifying that Pedro Grifol is 100 games under .500 as White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillén explains, as only Ozzie can, how he reacted when Grifol was hired over him. pic.twitter.com/XKeCnFvOx9
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 4, 2024
The Sox went 61-101 in 2023, Grifol’s first season. They’re 27-87 going into their game against the Oakland A’s on Monday.
“That means Pedro is 100 games under .500 from the time he got the job,” Guillen said, demonstrating he passed the math portion of the job interview.
The Athletic reported that when the Sox called Guillen for the vacancy created when Tony La Russa stepped away for health reasons after the 2022 season, he was given “a token interview” for the job.
As quoted by Jon Greenberg, Guillen said, “I swear to God on this, when (former general manager) Rick Hahn called me and said I don’t have the job, he said, ‘We found the next Ozzie Guillen.'”
The White Sox can tie an American League record for most consecutive losses (21) Monday. Should that fall, next up is the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies’ 23-game streak — the longest losing streak in modern baseball history.
More news: Chicago White Sox On Brink of Tying a Disgraceful Baseball Record
These days, a manager can only control so much. He doesn’t pitch. He doesn’t hit. He doesn’t steer the personnel decisions that are more directly involved with putting such a poor team on the field, such as the owner or general manager.
If Guillen believes either he or Grifol could make a meaningful difference in the White Sox’s fortunes, he’s fooling himself into thinking the manager has more power than he does.
While Guillen was quick to remind viewers he won a championship in the most recent Venezuelan Winter League last winter, he might also remind viewers of how his last managerial gig ended.
Guillen was fired after one season at the helm of the Miami Marlins for coupling a last-place finish in the National League East with compliments toward Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Things aren’t much better for him these days, it seems.
“I’m drinking a lot,” Guillen said. “I have problems with my wife a lot. The only people who get along with me is my grandkids, I don’t know why.”