Ozzie Guillen Is In Mid-Season Form

Spring training isn't just for the players you know. Yes, it's important they get in shape for the long 6 months ahead, but managers have to get ready for the grind too.

If you're Ozzie Guillen, it means you have to strengthen your most important weapon, your mouth.

Guillen appeared on WSCR670's Mike North Show in Chicago on Friday morning, and was asked about an article that had appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on February 21st about the recently traded Brandon McCarthy. In the article McCarthy made a few comments about how much happier he was in Texas because the clubhouse was younger and not as negative as the White Sox clubhouse.

Well, Ozzie took exception:

''I don't want to talk about Mac because he made a couple of comments - I really hate him. I don't like the comments he made about our clubhouse, about our players, about [us] negative people here. There's one thing about Ozzie Guillen: Ozzie Guillen is never negative...Obviously he wasn't in the position he liked to be. Well, we didn't want him in the bullpen, but that was the only spot we had. If Brandon McCarthy thought he was better than the five guys I had, he's wrong. The comment he made about the clubhouse that only two guys were single, everybody was married, nobody treated him the way he should ... well, everyone in our clubhouse gets along. I think Brandon should look himself in the mirror...You played with us 162 games and all of a sudden you leave and say you don't have a friend in the clubhouse? Only Brian Anderson? Well, he picked the wrong guy to be friends with. People forgot that Brandon McCarthy got caught a couple of times out at night. I called him into my office and said, 'You been hanging around the city a lot, huh?' I said, 'I don't have a spy on you, but I know a lot of people in the bars in Chicago. I've been here for 20 years, and they will tell me everything...He forgot he lost a couple of games for us. He lost at least five of the 72. We might be in the playoffs without him.''

God, I love Ozzie Guillen.

When told of Guillen's comments, McCarthy said "it's all been overblown from the way I said it."

What should make this all even more interesting is that the White Sox and Rangers have already had some heated moments over the last few seasons. It first started with the mutual hatred between Guillen and then Rangers manager Buck Showalter, and then it quickly escalated when Vicente Padilla drilled A.J. Pierzynski twice in a game last summer. That then resulted in the infamous Sean Tracey crying incident after Ozzie tore into him in the dugout after he failed to go out and bean Hank Blalock in retaliation.

What I don't get is how McCarthy could have had a hard time in Chicago. He was in one of the greatest cities in the world, with some of the best bars, and he was a 22-year old White Sox pitcher fresh off of a World Series championship.

You can't find friends!? What the hell is wrong with you?

It's pretty simple Brandon. You go to the bar. You buy a drink. You look for a girl. You go up to her and say, "Hi. My name is Brandon, and I'm a pitcher for the White Sox. I make $332,000 a year. What's your name?"

Then just sit back and watch the magic happen.

(Via Foul Balls)