I'll be honest: I can't figure this out. It's folly to try and make sense of anything that comes out of Ozzie Guillen's mouth, but just what is usually good Chicago Sun-Times beat reporter Joe Cowley trying to get across with this story? That people are racist? Well, no kidding; West Virginia's primary voters say hello. Is it that Guillen suffers a double-standard? Maybe:

''Believe me, if I got a DUI, a lot of people would ask for me to resign,'' he said. ''Tony got a slap on the wrist, but not because he's white and I'm Latino. Tony has been in this game for a long time. My situation is different because we have different personalities. But if I got caught, wow.

''The other guy, 'Oh, he was just having fun and had bad luck.' Me? 'It's about time they caught him drinking and driving.' Not because I'm Latino, but because of who I am. That's just me. I can't make other people think that way about race, though, or listen to what I say.''

OK, so there is a double-standard, but it's not because of race -- it's just because Tony La Russa is so well-liked? That's not really a double-standard. This makes no sense. Plus, we just got through like five paragraphs about how racism is well and alive, which, again, no kidding. Can someone please explain what Ozzie's trying to say? Because it's either a thoughtfully nuanced argument about race, or it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I can't figure out which, and it's driving me insane.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Los Angeles Angels (24-17) vs. Chicago White Sox (18-20) - 10:05PM Est.

While most of the world knows John Lackey as our very own Pat Lackey's older, harder-throwing, better-smelling, and much smarter estranged brother, he's better known in southern California as the ace of the Angels pitching staff (Pat , on the other hand, was turned down by the Angels when he applied to become the new rally monkey).

Lackey won 19 games for the Angels last season, and helped lead them to another AL West division crown, but he hasn't been available to the team at all this season. Of course, his absence hasn't done much to keep the Angels out of first place out west.

Now, with his return today, the Angels have become even stronger.

While most of the talk surrounding Joe Crede, his back, and his impending free agency that dominated White Sox spring training seems to have died down a bit, it hasn't changed the fact that the White Sox still aren't sure what they'd like to do with their third baseman. Crede got off to a real hot start in April, and is hitting .270/.345/.500 to be one of the only consistently productive hitters in the Sox lineup (though all seven of his homers and 22 of his 25 RBI came in April).

HIs back has also stood up to the beating that comes with playing third base on a daily basis, so overall, it looks like the old Joe Crede is back. So what are the White Sox going to do? They still have Josh Fields down in the minors waiting to take over the third base spot.

For Crede's part, he'd like to stay in Chicago, and is open to negotiating a new deal during the season. It's just the White Sox will have to be the ones who initiate it.

"We aren't the ones with the money, so I don't feel we need to make the offer," Crede said. "It's a situation were if they want to pay us, they will make the offer. We aren't going to go out and ask for money. That's not how I want to approach it."

"I don't approach teams about player contracts," added Boras, speaking from his suite at Angel Stadium a few hours before Tuesday's first pitch. "They are the employers. I let them know that Joe is happy with Chicago."

With the White Sox starting a four-game series against the Angels in Anaheim tonight, it marks the first time that Angels pitcher Jon Garland will have a chance to face his former team. Garland is scheduled to start against the Sox on Thursday (a day after John Lackey makes his first start of the season), but instead of asking Jon about that, all anybody really wanted to know was how he felt about playing for Ozzie Guillen.

Garland probably had the best approach of anyone in the White Sox clubhouse. Ignore him.

"I'm not surprised by [Guillen's latest antics]," Garland said. "He goes off on something every year. He knows what he's doing. He feeds it."

"For me as a pitcher, it was easy to just tune it out. I didn't deal with him. I worked with Coop (White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper). I knew what was going on.

"I knew there was always something getting stirred up. But I just went about my business and worked with Coop."

It's not exactly a shock that one of Guillen's former players probably wasn't his biggest fan, as even though he never came out and said it, it was somewhat obvious that Garland was never a big fan of Ozzie while he was in Chicago. They once got into it in the dugout when Garland failed to plunk a batter after Ozzie gave him the order too, and Jon's laid-back attitude and approach to life just doesn't mesh well with the manic Guillen.

Still, that being said, Garland still supported Ozzie and the White Sox when asked about the whole blow-up doll incident. Garland feels that whatever happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse, and that "if you don't like what you see, you don't need to be in here."

Obviously, the last week or so has been an insane one for Ozzie Guillen. He had to go from watching his team slumping badly, to dealing with attention about his latest profane tirade, to talking about blow-up dolls in the clubhouse, and finished it all up by saying Lou Piniella if [bleeping] messed up. I think he killed a few people at some point as well.

As they say, that's just Ozzie being Ozzie. That statement makes no sense to me, because I looked Ozzie up in the dictionary, and it didn't say it meant "bat[bleep] insane." Hell, I couldn't even find Ozzie in the dictionary.

It seems, though, that sometimes Ozzie being Ozzie gets tiring for Ozzie, and he's even contemplated quitting after this season. He's not going to, as he made clear later, but he does admit he thinks about it from time to time.

''I had to explain to my wife what was going on,'' Guillen said. ''She saw me 'bleeping' all over the place, and all of a sudden she wanted to know what was going on. When people in my family have to start asking me what's going on, that's what bothered me the most.

''I want to manage until I'm dead, but in the meanwhile, I get worn down when people keep saying stuff they don't know,'' Guillen confessed. ''When people say stuff and put me and my ballclub in a bad spot that we shouldn't it is a challenge. But you know what? I like a challenge. When I signed the contract to become a manager in Chicago, I knew what I had to face. I know the people of Chicago. But every day is a different day, but some days are tougher than others.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

St. Louis Cardinals (23-15) at Milwaukee Brewers (17-19) - 2:05 PM ET

Milwaukee, already known for its consumption of beer and brats, has been the Tums capital of America this weekend. First, Jason Isringhausen blew a save on Friday after having the Brewers at two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning ... which led to Jason being demoted from the closers role. Then the very next day, there was Eric Gagne blowing yet another save, which was Gagne's ... oh I've lost count this season, how many blown saves is that? Gotta be between 50 and 80 (actually, he only blew a tie game in the ninth, but Gagne did get the loss). And that led Gagne to muse that maybe he should go the same path as Isringhausen. So can anybody here close today's game? Hey, at least extra innings will be fun.

See, you think Ozzie Guillen's just this half-loonie guy who also happens to be a pretty OK baseball manager. Wrong! Ozzie Guillen is a media watchdog, and he's not afraid to tell you what drives the information-starved hordes:

"Who cares about Britney Spears? But she's on TV every day. Why do you think people give a ... about Jose Canseco? That ... sells," Guillen said Thursday at the end of a 25-minute pregame meeting with reporters. "Who's the manager they remember the most? ... Billy Martin. They don't remember Sparky Anderson. ... They remember Billy Martin because he was the crazy one," Guillen said. "Why do you think they like Lou Piniella? Because Lou is good? Great guy. Great baseball people. But people love Lou Piniella because he's ... up!"

Simple terms, sure, but it is something of an astute observation: 99 percent of people that Googletard Britney Spears every day aren't Googling her because they feel an emotional attachment to the singer. They're Googling her because they wish to revel in her decadent public shame, the sort of unfulfilled stuff that lurks in the Id of every well-meaning suburban mother in America. Ozzie gets that. He might well be a visionary.

Now, for his second act, a dissertation on the perils of subjectivity:

"Some people like stuff, some don't," he said.

OK, that's just bull[bleep].

If you ever wonder why Steve Phillips has never gotten another job as a big league GM after the Mets sent him packing, and I doubt that you do, you need look no further than today's column at ESPN the Magazine the Web Site.
He's got his trading cap on and he's coming up with ways for the Reds to improve their roster.

All of his ideas are pretty laughable but a proposed deal he dreams up with the Yankees takes the cake.


I'm not sure you could even pull this trade off in MLB '08 without your XBox exploding. Lil' Stein may flap his gums from time to time but he's not certifiably insane. Also, why would Phillips, in an article devoted to giving Walt Jocketty advice, would propose a deal that doesn't circumvents the general managers? Makes you wonder if his tenure with the Mets was like Costanza's with the Yankees, they only woke him for the important meetings.

If you thought what the White Sox violated blow-up dolls with baseball bats, you should see what they do to space heaters with them. Mark Buehrle didn't have a very strong performance to follow Gavin Floyd's near no-no on Tuesday night, as he allowed 7 runs in 5.2 innings and fell to 1-4 on the season.

Needless to say, Buehrle isn't too happy with the way the 2008 season has been going for him, and he let the frustration boil over after being removed from yesterday's game.

Moments after rookie Carlos Gomez hit a two-out RBI double to cap a five-run sixth-inning rally, Buehrle already was off the mound when he gave Guillen the ball.

Buehrle went to the dugout, grabbed one of Juan Uribe's bats and whacked it five times against a space heater and a dugout bench before tossing his cap and shaking his head.

"It was everything building up," Buehrle said after the Sox lost for the seventh time in eight games. "It was the way I pitched, the way we're playing. It was one of those games where you can't hold it back."

As of now, the League of People For Space Heater Rights haven't filed a complaint, so Buehrle or the White Sox haven't issued a fake apology for Mark's actions yet. When asked about it after the game, manager Ozzie Guillen had this to say.

"It's bull[bleep]. What Mark did to that space heater is [bleep]ing bull[bleep]. That space heater is the [bleep] of Mark Buehrle. Two weeks ago, it was the greatest [bleep]ing space heater in the [bleep]ing history of space [bleep]ing heaters. Now it's horse[bleep]. I'm tired of it. [Bleep]. [Bleep]. [Bleep]......[bleep]."

Ozzie Guillen isn't known for his apologies. In all, he actually refuses to apologize about most things, whether they be foul, self-pitying outbursts, or this blow-up doll nonsense. Guillen is not a man of few words. It's just that those words are never "I'm sorry."

But! In a sheer plot twist, Guillen does want to confess one thing he's sorry about: questioning Alex Rodriguez's national ties before the World Baseball Classic (via BBTF):

"I don't feel guilty about anything,'' Guillen said Wednesday. "The only regret I have was A-Rod (Yankees star Alex Rodriguez), making that kid suffer. I was telling the truth, but I didn't have the right to put that kid on the spot,'' Guillen said Wednesday. "That was a (bleep) thing on my part; that was low-class. That's why I apologized. I never start anything. I started it with Alex, and that's why I regret it. Everything else, (heck), no, because I know I was right.''

Judging by this timeframe, Carol Slezak can expect an apology for the blow-up doll shenanigans in approximately 2010. Chicago, for the accusation that they treat the White Sox like a female dog, will probably have to wait until 2011 or 2012; more than one apology every two years is not feasible. Sorry. (Whoops.)