If any of you have turned on ESPN at all today, you have probably seen some footage of Ozzie Guillen in umpire Joe West's face over two extremely questionable balk calls. You would have seen them taunt each other, all the while pumping their chests out like raging gorillas (West's chest being a little more lumpy than Guillen's). You would have seen Ozzie Guillen at his finest as a coach. And I mean that in all seriousness.
Look, anyone can call out Ozzie as a coach and he usually deserves that criticism. But nobody on this planet can call out Ozzie for not caring about his players. The soul reason he stepped out on the field today was because he heard West say to Buehrle, "I'm going to kick you out of the game'". Ozzie felt that West was embarrassing his player, so he marched out to make sure West knew his feelings.
Sure, knowing it was Joe West probably made it easier for the Oz man to get out there (West has ejected Ozzie three times out of his total 22 ejections). Those two have more bad blood than Castor Troy and Sean Archer in Face Off. But let it be known that no matter who was umping first, and who was pitching, Ozzie would have acted the same way. He is a coach you want in your corner if you are a player, and people in Chicago need to realize that.
Call the recent success of the White Sox under Guillen a fluke, call it luck, call it whatever you want, I don't care. But Ozzie Guillen cares for his players in a day in age where coaches get fired because of their relationships with players. He may not be the most baseball savvy coach, and he may not be the most intricate coach like Joe Maddon, but he is a fighter. He is passionate and quirky. He has a fire that no one coach in the majors can match, and if I had to pick one guy to have in my corner as a player, it would be Ozzie.
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