Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen admitted what many already assumed: He’s purposely ordered his pitchers to plunk batters in retaliation to other teams throwing at his players.
“I’ve hit people before on purpose,” said Guillen, the Chicago White Sox manager, after a game Sunday in which umpires levied a suspect ejection in the fifth inning of a blowout when Chicago reliever D.J. Carrasco hit Kansas City’s Miguel Olivo with the bases loaded and incited a bench-emptying square dance.
“Yes I have,” Guillen continued. “Because that’s my job. Protect my players.”
Managers know better than to admit publicly one of baseball’s most unsavory truths, that a select number of hit-by-pitches registered each year come laced with intent. The purpose pitch – or the purpose hit, in these instances – is simply a part of baseball, and whether it’s to keep a batter from getting too comfortable or avenge some kind of perceived misdeed, it will never go away, no matter how much Major League Baseball tries to police its game.
This is completely stating the obvious, but Ozzie doesn’t have that chip in his brain that tells him to think before he speaks. The information just goes from brain to mouth without hesitation and it gets him into trouble. Still, you gotta love when he speaks his mind because he is exactly who he is – nothing more, nothing less.
That said, managers shouldn’t ordering hits on other teams’ players – even if they think they’re protecting their players in the process. What happens when someone catches a pitch in the face and a career is lost because a manager wanted to send a message?
