Posted October 11, 200519 yr BERARDINO: Guillen's the one who got away Mike Berardino Sports columnist October 11, 2005 CHICAGO -- Cancel the interviews. Send out the rejection letters. Tell the receptionist to take the rest of the week off. I have found the perfect manager for the Marlins. Just check out these raves from real live big-league ballplayers: "His energy definitely rubs off on people," White Sox center fielder Aaron Rowand says. "He spends more time in the clubhouse with his players than he does sitting in his office by himself. On the plane, he'll play cards with us. He's a player who's managing right now." White Sox pitcher Freddy Garcia: "He gives you a lot of confidence. He's always in a good mood. He always talks to the guys. He's real friendly with everybody, and he's always got your back." White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski: "Guys respect him. He tells you right to your face, `Hey, you stink,' when you stink. He'll also pat you on the back when you do something good. He played in this league at the highest level. He understands exactly what it's about." Sounds pretty dreamy so far, huh? Solid enough to take a pass on Joe Girardi, Fredi Gonzalez and the other three known candidates the Marlins will interview this week at Jeffrey Loria's Manhattan offices? Could be. If not for one teensy-weensy little problem. Ozzie Guillen isn't available. Not just this week, when he will lead his upstart White Sox into the American League Championship Series for the first time in a dozen years, starting tonight at U.S. Cellular Field. But for the next three seasons as well after signing a midyear contract extension. Sorry, Marlins. At 41, Guillen isn't just the hottest young manager in the game, darling of the television cameras and motor-mouthed hero of the South Side. He's also the standard by which every Marlins managerial candidate will be measured in the coming days and weeks. Not just by Marlins followers and South Florida media, but by the club's leadership as well. If Guillen were ever to become available, the Marlins would snap him up "in a second," according to a National League source. He might be a little too blunt for his own good at times, but in just two seasons since the White Sox took a shot on one of their most popular (and controversial) former players, Guillen has shown he has what it takes on so many levels. He's shown the energy to motivate a Marlins club that grew stale and a little too comfortable in Jack McKeon's final season. He's displayed the passion to stand up for his beliefs and the willingness to confront those players who run afoul of them. Guillen, too, has the communication skills to convey his points without alienating the modern-day ballplayer, particularly those who share his Latin American roots. You think Miguel Cabrera would be showing up 45 minutes before first pitch with his fellow Venezuelan running the show? You think Guillermo Mota would be sulking or Juan Encarnacion would be begging out of the lineup on Ozzie's watch? No way. Not if these last two years in Chicago are a reliable guide. "Not everybody is like Ozzie," Garcia says of his fellow Venezuelan. "Other [prospective managers] might be young, but they don't have what he has. He's got something inside him." And here's the depressing kicker: The Marlins had their perfect manager right there on the payroll and let him get away. Granted, timing had much to do with Guillen's departure after the 2003 World Series. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf saw his old shortstop coaching third for the Marlins, saw him laughing and yelling and coaxing maximum effort out of a stunningly cohesive group, and decided to bring Ozzie home. But South Florida is Guillen's home, too. Closer to Caracas. Closer to friends. Closer to his kids' schools. What if the Marlins had cut Reinsdorf off at the pass? What if they had taken a page from the Book of Steinbrenner and met that White Sox offer with an announcement of their own? How different would Marlins baseball look now if they had worked out a deal whereby McKeon would manage the 2004 season before moving upstairs, with Guillen guaranteed to become his successor in 2005? Maybe that wouldn't have been fair to McKeon, not with the scent of October champagne still so strong. But isn't visionary leadership all about the pre-emptive strike? About making the bold move no one sees coming? No one saw these White Sox coming either. No one, that is, except their rising star of a manager who has set the bar awfully high for whomever the Marlins hire instead. Mike Berardino can be reached at [email protected]. Copyright ? 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-mik...la-sports-front Does anyone else feel this way?
October 11, 200519 yr It was good read by Bernadino and sometimes I feel like he was the one that got away but when he left the team was coming off a World Series championship, so you were not going to make a managerial change at that point in time. If he were avaialable would he be my leading canidate...HANDS DOWN...i think despite the late season collapse, that he did a wonderful job with that team. Case in point...look at how El Duque has pitched for the White Sox this year, he really never showed flashes like that with the Yankees. But this is all a fantasy world, he won't be let go by the White Sox, so we must now concentrate on the canidates we do have...Gonzalez, Washington, Girardi, Foley and the other TB guy. So lets see what direction the front office choose to go in
October 11, 200519 yr If I were the Marlins, I would wait until the end of the postseason (or when/if the White Sox get eliminated) to make a final decision. This gives us a chance to talk to Ozzie and see if there is anything we can do to bring him back to So. Florida. We probably can't get him, but we should see if there is a chance.
October 11, 200519 yr If I were the Marlins, I would wait until the end of the postseason (or when/if the White Sox get eliminated) to make a final decision. This gives us a chance to talk to Ozzie and see if there is anything we can do to bring him back to So. Florida. We probably can't get him, but we should see if there is a chance. Isn't he under contract?
October 11, 200519 yr If I were the Marlins, I would wait until the end of the postseason (or when/if the White Sox get eliminated) to make a final decision. This gives us a chance to talk to Ozzie and see if there is anything we can do to bring him back to So. Florida. We probably can't get him, but we should see if there is a chance. Isn't he under contract? Yeah, he is... but he might have a buyout in his contract. Who knows? We should explore it just to see if it's a possibility. Might as well try.
October 11, 200519 yr Typical Berardino piece, looking back, playing what-if. What-if the White Sox finished third this season? What if their slide from 15 games up to 1 1/2 up continued right down the drain? What if their two middle infielders were lost for the last month of the season or Buerhle went south on them with seven straight losses, would he be singing Ozzie's praises today? I'm thrilled for Guillen, and I'm going to root for him every game they play, but that doesn't mean Berardino has it right when he uses Guillen's success and the success of the White Sox as yet another excuse to disaparge the Marlins organization by playing the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. Berardino is a one note Johnny. Whatever the Marlins do will be wrong as far as he is concerned. Like a child, he still, more than two years later can't come to grips with the fact he was frozen out of the Torborg firing/McKeon hiring scoop. Once the best baseball writer in town he's become nothing less than predictable and pathetic.
October 11, 200519 yr Typical Berardino piece, looking back, playing what-if. Yep. hindsight is always 20/20. :violin
October 11, 200519 yr there is no way they could justify firing Jack and hiring Ozzie after the 2003 World Series. They had no reason to want Jack out really, he was riding high as was the team. They could have promised Ozzie a job in waiting, but he got a real offer to manage "now" from a team where he made his ML bones, for an owner who took care of him for a decade or more. Why would Ozzie wait around when he got a legit offer like that?
October 11, 200519 yr Sure, I've thought Ozzie was the life and energy of the 2003 team. We lost a lot when he left. But who can blame him for taking a wonderful opportunity to manage for the team he loves. The idea by Berardino that somehow the Marlins could have kept him here "in waiting" is absurd. Even if Ozzie had the choice of managing for the Sox or Marlins, my bet is he would have chosen the Sox.
October 11, 200519 yr I bet Berardino would've been the first one to bash the Marlins if they got rid of McKeon and hired Ozzie.
October 11, 200519 yr It was good read by Bernadino and sometimes I feel like he was the one that got away but when he left the team was coming off a World Series championship, so you were not going to make a managerial change at that point in time. If he were avaialable would he be my leading canidate...HANDS DOWN...i think despite the late season collapse, that he did a wonderful job with that team. Case in point...look at how El Duque has pitched for the White Sox this year, he really never showed flashes like that with the Yankees. But this is all a fantasy world, he won't be let go by the White Sox, so we must now concentrate on the canidates we do have...Gonzalez, Washington, Girardi, Foley and the other TB guy. So lets see what direction the front office choose to go in El Duque's best seasons and postseasons were with the Yankees :whistle
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