Guillen, Ozzie

Ozzie Guillen, in full Oswaldo José Guillen Barrios, (born January 20, 1964, Ocumare del Tuy, Venezuela), Venezuelan-born American professional baseball player, coach, and manager, known for being outspoken and unpredictable and, as manager of the American League (AL) Chicago White Sox, for leading the team to the World Series championship in 2005. Guillen was the first Venezuelan to manage a major league team and the first manager born outside the United States to win a World Series.

Guillen grew up admiring great Venezuelan shortstops such as Chico Carrasquel and Luis Aparicio. He signed with the San Diego Padres in 1980. After four years in the minors, Guillen was traded to the White Sox, where he served as the team’s starting shortstop for 13 years (1985–97). After leaving the White Sox, Guillen went on to play for the Baltimore Orioles (1998), Atlanta Braves (1998–99), and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2000). In his 16 major-league seasons, Guillen was respected for his solid defense and passion for playing. He was named AL Rookie of the Year in 1985 and was an AL all-star three times (1988, 1990, and 1991). After ending his playing career in 2000, Guillen became the third-base coach of the Montreal Expos (2001) and then of the Florida Marlins (2002–03), where he was part of the coaching staff that led the team to the World Series championship in 2003. Following the 2003 season, Guillen returned to Chicago to manage the White Sox.

In 2004, in Guillen’s first season as manager, the White Sox 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: he emphasized manufacturing runs over waiting for home runs, and he allowed pitchers in a jam to work through it. The new approach paid immediate dividends, however, as the White Sox jumped out to an early lead in the AL Central Division and finished the season with the AL’s best win-loss record (99–63). In the play-offs the White Sox won 11 of 12 games, including a four-game sweep of the National League Houston Astros in the World Series—the team’s first World Series title since 1917. The national media recognized Guillen’s unique skills and rewarded him with AL Manager of the Year honours.

In 2008 he became the first manager in the history of the White Sox franchise to lead the team to more than one play-off appearance when the White Sox won the AL Central Division title that year. Chicago missed the play-offs in the following three seasons, and mounting tensions between Guillen and team management led to his being released from his contract with two games remaining in the 2011 season. He then signed with the Marlins (who soon thereafter became known as the Miami Marlins) to become that team’s manager, and the White Sox were sent two Marlins players as compensation for letting Guillen out of his contract. However, his time in Miami was a failure, as Guillen drew an early-season suspension after praising former Cuban president Fidel Castro—an incredibly unpopular figure with Miami’s large population of Cuban refugees—and the big-spending Marlins went on to win just 69 games in 2012, leading to Guillen’s firing at season’s end. The following year, he began working as a sports analyst on television and radio programs.