GUILLEN MY VALENTINE!?

Hello Fans,

The games really count, the crowds aren’t on vacation in A-Z or F-L-A, and the managers are trying to be in the spotlight.  What?  The managers are upstaging the players?  Well, at least two of them are.  Ozzie Guillen and Bobby Valentine are known for putting their spikes in their mouths.  They’re both in new places in Miami and Boston, respectively, and already in trouble.  They both could not have said many worse things considering the content of their statements and where they are now residing and working.

Ozzie got himself a five game suspension, handed down from his own club, for acknowledging the 60 year run Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has made in terms of surviving ordeals that threatened his life countless times.  Except that when Guillen expressed those thoughts to a TIME magazine reporter it came across closer to Guillen praising and respecting the villainous Castro than not condoning his stranglehold on the Cuban nation.  Considering that Miami is something in the neighborhood of fifty percent Cuban-American, he may as well have started a Miami Beach cold war.  He needs to just stick to baseball.  There is a reason the term ‘baseball-man’ exists.  It is because that’s what sums up many men who have spent their entire lives in a dugout.  Worldly issues are another department.  There is no need to comment in detail on any dictators, religious practices, etc.  I did watch his press conference, and do believe his genuine apology that was not written by the way, and repeated for emphasis several times.  Anybody can make a mistake, especially if you are thinking in terms of one language’s phrases and actually speaking in another.  At some point last week, I’m sure Ozzie was wishing Castro had make the club in his mythical tryout for the Senators back in the ’50s.  Just forget the politics stuff though Ozzie.

Bobby Valentine, this just in, you are not working in Bristol and you also are not appearing in a suit on Baseball Tonight anymore.  You now have a baseball uniform that says ‘Boston’ on the front.  You can’t answer a question about a Red Sox staple like Kevin Youkilis and say that you don’t think he is into it mentally or physically like he used to be.  That would have been out of bounds even from the old studio perch.  If it was true (that guy plays the game as hard as anyone), you still can’t say that when you’re battling the Rays with him.  Valentine apologized (genius) but oversimplified it when he said he was “just answering a question”.  Come on man, that’s not an answer, that’s an insult that borders on lunacy ten games into a Major League season.  As a manager, if you wouldn’t say to his face, it definitely should not be spoken to the media.  Dustin Pedroia immediately defended Youkilis and said, in a Cal or Jeter-esque fashion, that they don’t do things like that in Boston.  Great move and great time to not sit on your hands and keep the clubhouse intact.  Your second-sacker had to reel you in before Memorial Day?  Bobby, you’ve been around way too long to make that kind of mistake.  And that’s the kind of mistake that could banish you from Bean-town and from the Bigs.  Again.

Ozzie and Bobby both bring a lot of passion to the game, no doubt.  They often don’t think enough or are too honest before speaking, which is entertaining for us fans at times.  However, these recent run-ins make them look unprofessional, to say the least, and are embarrassing for their organizations.  They are veteran managers who perhaps need to act like they just got their first big chance, which would mean exercising caution after the games are over.  Then, they could stay out of the hot water (for a while anyway) and roll on with their talented ball clubs.

Later Fans.