Life Lessons From Ozzie Guillen

Communication Specialist Ozzie Guillen

I think I’ve made my disdain for professional baseball pretty clear. I’m over it. These staunch sentiments do not, however, apply to Ozzie Guillen, who I’m convinced is the David Dunn to my Mr. Glass.

The ChiSox manager is vulgar. He is unfiltered. He is abrasive. You could not take him to a family gathering without permanently ostracizing your poor Aunt Edna.

But Ozzie Guillen says what he means, dammit. And he says exactly what he means. There’s no guesswork. There’s no pussyfooting. There’s no sidestepping the truth or anxiety over where you rank. Ozzie Guillen is a British foofighter and bullshit is his natzees.

Sure, he’s not the most tactful human being on earth – a rusty steel pipe thinks this dude’s blunt – but he’s a direct communicator, and you will never in a million in years have to worry about your standing in his personal doghouse. He throws his players under the bus, but not for errors – for lack of hustle. He chaps his owners’ asses and keeps White Sox GM Ken Williams up at night waiting for that pending “Ozzie just told the Trib that Star Player X is a bleeping mother bleeper who should stick his bleep up his sister’s bleep.”

But this is better than the alternative: PC jitterbugging and muted ambiguity.

In a recent ESPN E:60 piece, Jeremy Schapp asked Guillen in front of his wife – in the family kitchen – if his spouse had changed in the three decades they’d been married.

Boobs, hair, he responds.

I love this man. Obviously. And I love him because A) he doesn’t fit and B) he doesn’t care about A. Guillen once fired his own son from the White Sox organization. He called former ESPN personality Jay Mariotti the “F” word in a heated exchange, then proceeded to explain to Schapp it was “the best thing he said about him all night. I wish I could’ve said how I really felt.”

For the slur, Major League Baseball sent Guillen to probably-deserved anger management courses where he promptly turned to counseling the anger manager. This is, of course, great stuff, but what gives it all backbone – instead of making the man out a hotheaded egomaniac – is that he backs it up with wins.

Ozzie Guillen, as evidenced by the World Series ring on his left hand, is really freakin good at what he does. He talks the talk (with a megaphone and three Fender amps). But he sure as hell walks the walk.

So I want to be more like this guy. I don’t want to guess. I don’t want to make others guess. I don’t want to dodge people’s fragile toes or have them worry about stepping on mine. I’m so over it – all this BS, tepid tinkerbell talk, game playing, politics and on and on. I feel like we’re all just living a Zep song – communication breakdown, it’s always the same.

So bring it. Whatever you got, bring it. Whatever’s on your mind. Whatever’s on your heart. Whatever’s in your soul. This will be good for us. From now on, I’m a disciple of Ozzie Guillen.