Ozzie Guillen and the 'White Sox Soap Opera' Continues

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The reality show about the White Sox, being filmed for MLB Network, should probably air on TNT.

As in, "We know drama."

The latest drama came Friday, when manager Ozzie Guillen's 24-year-old son Oney resigned from his job in the front office because he had been criticizing the organization on Twitter.

Which could have forced the elder Guillen to choose between his family and his team.

Except Guillen found a Solomonic answer, telling Oney to resign.

"My kid made a mistake," Guillen said Saturday. "They didn't fire him. That came from me, his father, to say, 'Listen, I think it's time to move on and walk away.'

"I think that's the hardest thing I ever did in my life. I [felt] very sick all game [Friday] because I never thought I'd be in that situation."

Guillen asked the media in a 20-minute session Saturday morning to move on from this story, saying, "We forgot about how good we are, how good we're playing, what kind of ballclub we have ... I think it's maybe my responsibility, and maybe my fault, about that."

"Leave Kenny [Williams, the general manager] alone. This is going to be a White Sox soap opera, and I don't want that [stuff]."

Too late.

Certainly there seems some sort of simmering tension among Guillen, Williams and owner Jerry Reinsdorf -- who is loyal to the other two.

"That's part of the game," Guillen said. "This is life. Kenny has a job to do. I have a job to do. Kenny's job is to protect this ballclub the best he can. And so do I.

"Hopefully our relationship stays the same. I think it will be. We're grown men."

Williams told the Chicago Tribune:

"I urged everyone to do some overnight thinking," Williams said. "I got kids myself and they've all made their share of mistakes, and we've all made our own as young adults. So some times it takes a little bit of calm before you address things.

"But it was addressed Friday. At this point, I'll be honest with you. There's a lot to do around here."

How torn was Guillen? He refused his normal postgame interviews Friday. (He apologized for that Saturday.)

Then, over the course of Saturday's Q&A, he said:

• "When you talk about my wife, my [three] kids, I'll kill for them. I'll kill anybody for them."

• "My 25 players are more important than Kenny, that's more important than Jerry, that's more important than my entire family -- more important than my kids, more important than my wife. The 25 players are going to make me be good or they're going to make me be bad."

• "My family's more important than my team."

• "I think, to me, the team's more important to my family right now."

Guillen apparently draws a distinction between the team -- his players -- and the organization. But Ozzie admitted that Oney, a former White Sox minor-leaguer, crossed a line.

"Every mistake I make, I assume [responsibility for] my mistakes -- 100 percent," Ozzie said. "And I think my kid made one mistake. I support my kid. I love my kid more than I love Kenny, I love my kid more than I love Jerry, I love my kid more than I love the White Sox. ... Wrong or right, I'm behind my kids 100 percent. And nobody's going to change that."

"He's getting paid by the Chicago White Sox. And he has to respect the rules of the White Sox ... I've got to show people with this organization, everything starts at the top. My kids do not have privilege over everybody else. Anyone."

Ozzie did say that if Oney is ever barred from the White Sox clubhouse, he will quit as manager.

Among Oney's offensive tweets were one critical of a Chicago restaurant partly owned by Williams; one calling for the team to extend the contract of catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and "I love it how people are monitoring my tweets like I'm someone important. Everyone is entitled to there own opinion."

After his resignation, Oney got more explicit:

"I hope the dorks aren't running the organization or else were [sic] [screwed]. 3 geeks who never played baseball a day in there life telling ... experts what to do."

Said Ozzie: "I think it was funny. ... It is [the worst restaurant in Chicago]. I think everybody is entitled to an opinion to what is the best and what is the worst.

"When you talk about my wife, my [three] kids, I'll kill for them. I'll kill anybody for them."
- Ozzie Guillen "Of my three kids, Oney is the one like me. He says [stuff]. He says what he feels."

Ozzie has a Twitter account as well, but he sticks to off-field topics. The team did veto his idea for an MLB-administered Ozzie Guillen web site.

"I will do [Twitter] and nobody will tell me to stop," he said. "My kids ... will tweet whatever they want to tweet. There's one place you can't tweet whatever you want to tweet, and that's Cuba."

And in person, Guillen remains unfiltered. At one point he said, "Jerry Reinsdorf is so loyal to people here some people shouldn't be working ... and they're still working here." And he repeated the point later.

Guillen said he wasn't surprised by all the attention to his family's Twitter, because he knows he's famous.

"I always put my face on the line and say what I feel," Guillen said. "And nobody's going to change that. I don't care who they are, what they do, who the title.

"I will say stuff, and it showed yesterday when I told my kid, 'Step away.' "