Ozzie Guillen directs derogatory slur toward Jay Mariotti
The Dirt:
On Tuesday to reporters, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen referred to Chicago Sun-Times columnist and Around the Horn contributor Jay Mariotti as a derogatory name for a homosexual.
Angry with a recent column by Mariotti critical of Guillen’s handling of recently demoted relief pitcher Sean Tracey and upset with Mariotti with columns of the past, Guillen said to reporters when referring to Mariotti before Tuesday’s game with the Cardinals, “What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag.”
The Spin: What do you do if you are a White Sox player or front office personnel after this? It’s one thing to berate your team after losing to the Blue Jays, or to lambaste a pitcher for not hitting a batter, but this is the White Sox, not the White Hoods.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:38 am
This is an outrage. What if Mariotti had written a piece and used a derogatory word for a Hispanic? They didn’t take care of this jerk any of the other times he spouted off (and this isn’t the first time he’s used a derogatory word for homosexual), they had better do it now.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:48 am
Mariotti has written a rebuttal regarding the incident. The most interesting part:
Obviously, Guillen hasn’t learned his lesson about using such ugly language. He hasn’t because his boss, Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, is an enabler who is letting Ozzie run amok, whether it’s offending homosexual groups that want Guillen punished or saying someone should “shoot the [bleep]'’ after Jason Grimsley served as a steroids informant in a federal investigation. Reinsdorf, as I pointed out last year, is co-chairman of Major League Baseball’s Equal Opportunity Committee. Years ago, he and Bud Selig led the charge to oust Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott after she made racial and ethnic slurs. Sports and America are better off for that deed, yet where is Reinsdorf when his own manager has slurred the gay community not once but twice? Isn’t Reinsdorf hypocritical when he refers to Guillen as “the Hispanic Jackie Mason'’ and asks us to take everything he says in a humorous light?