Ozzie Guillen Nearly Quit

There are plenty of things that come out of the mouth of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen that shouldn't be taken too seriously. More often than not it seems that Guillen only says things for the sake of saying them to take the heat off of his own players. He's even intimated that he might walk away from his managerial duties from time to time, but apparently he was pretty serious about it last summer.

After the Sox lost three of four to the Rays last June, Ozzie got in a bit of trouble with his general manager Kenny Williams after some comments he made. Guillen went on rant complaining about the way his team was playing and said that Williams had to either fire him, hitting coach Don Cooper, or ditch some players and fix things. Williams responded that "It's just not a good idea to throw your boss under the bus, especially when that boss has had your back as much as I have had his."

According to Guillen, after hearing Kenny's comments, he nearly walked away.

'People don't realize, I called [chairman Jerry Reinsdorf] and I told Jerry, 'Listen, I don't need this [stuff]. I can stay home in Miami,''' he said Wednesday on the eve of another four-game series at Tampa Bay.

''I told [Reinsdorf], 'Is this thing going to go in a different direction because of the comment I made? Then [expletive] it.'

''He said, 'Come on, don't be a child.' I mean, I spent the day off at my house, watching all of this on TV and hearing from people, listening to what [Williams] said, and I was pissed. Once I saw how Kenny was taking it, I was even more pissed.''

Eventually Guillen and Williams hugged it out, and the Sox went on to win the division and lose to the same Rays team that nearly caused Guillen to quit.

As for when Ozzie thinks about leaving the White Sox this season, I'll set the over/under on July 1.