Guillen, Ozzie

▪ 2006

      At the start of the 2005 Major League Baseball season, Chicago's National League (NL) Cubs and American League (AL) White Sox had gone a combined 185 years without winning a World Series title. Ozzie Guillen, the outspoken, unpredictable manager of the White Sox, turned the city upside down, however, by guiding a squad of largely unheralded players to the pinnacle of professional baseball and ending the Windy City's long dry spell.

      When Guillen joined the White Sox as manager in late 2003, he was well aware of the franchise's losing tradition—he had been the team's starting shortstop for 13 years (1985–97). In his first season as manager, the White Sox hit a lot of home runs but finished well out of first place. During the off-season, he convinced general manager Kenny Williams that the team needed to sacrifice some of its power hitting to add speed, defense, and pitching. Over the course of the 2005 season, Guillen was able to draw unexpected greatness from players whom many had written off as career journeymen. He drew criticism along the way—sometimes for expressing himself too openly in the press, but mostly for his style of game management, in which he emphasized manufacturing runs over waiting for home runs and allowed pitchers in a jam to work through it. The new approach paid immediate dividends, however, as the Sox jumped out to an early lead in the AL Central Division, finished the season with the AL's best record (99–63), and ripped through the play-offs, winning 11 of 12 games and sweeping the NL Houston Astros four games to none in the best-of-seven World Series. The national media recognized Guillen's unique skills and rewarded him with AL Manager of the Year honours.

      Oswaldo José Guillen Barrios was born on Jan. 20, 1964, in Ocumare del Tuy, Venez. He grew up admiring great Venezuelan shortstops, such as Chico Carrasquel and Luis Aparicio, and signed with the San Diego Padres in 1980. After four years in the minors, Guillen was traded to the White Sox, where he was named AL Rookie of the Year in 1985. In his 16 major-league seasons (including stints with the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays), Guillen was respected for his solid defense and passion for playing and was named to the AL All-Star team three times (1988, 1990, and 1991). After ending his playing career in 2000, he became the third-base coach of the Montreal Expos (2001) and then of the Florida Marlins (2002–03). Guillen—the first Venezuelan to manage a major league team and the first manager born outside the U.S. to win a World Series—remained fiercely loyal to his homeland. In November 2005 he carried the World Series trophy to Venezuela to share the White Sox success with his countrymen.

James Hennelly

* * *