Oney Guillen is best known as the son of outspoken White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen. Oney was drafted by the organization in ‘07, played two seasons, and then began working in the team’s scouting department last season. He was looking forward to his second season in the team’s front office until a twitter controversy arose, leading to his resignation on Friday.
Talking with Oney on Saturday, you could sense his frustration in what he called a contradiction with the White Sox organization, “You want to keep stuff private but you approve a reality show for the team. You say you want to keep stuff in-house but you agree to do a reality show. It’s contradictory, don’t you think?”
Oney was confused because he never felt he was critical about the organization on his twitter account and because he had been posting tweets for over a month without the team telling him to stop. While he did concede that the organization probably wouldn’t want him to influence decisions with his tweets (he made several positive remarks about Andruw Jones and even advocated for re-signing A.J. Pierzynski), he was disappointed that they never approached him to talk about the issue.
“I didn’t tweet anything bad at all,” Guillen lamented. “I only heard stuff through the grapevine. If they had asked me to close down the account I would have but they never said anything.” Oney said he felt there was a double-standard because other members within the organization have twitter accounts and that didn’t seem to be a problem. He felt he was being watched under a microscope because of who his dad was, not because of what he was writing.
Tension seemed to have been brewing within the White Sox organization the past few months. First, the team grumbled when Ozzie Guillen signed up for a twitter account. Then, when Ozzie had plans to expand his thoughts onto a website, the team nixed the plans. Oney’s resignation seemed to be the culmination of mounting problems that could last into the season, but it’s his final words that will ring true for most Sox fans, “Why are we worrying about what a 24-year-old kid is twittering instead of winning games?”
Opening day is only two weeks away and suddenly a reality show doesn’t look like the best of ideas for a club that’s already engaged in a soap opera.
Typically I like to keep things pretty sports-centric around here, but since like 20% of the country watches Dancing with the Stars when it’s on TV, I figure some of you have to be one of those one-in-five watching (unless we all make up the other shmoes watching SportsCenter). Anyway, I had the pleasure of speaking with Karina Smirnoff, one of the best dancers in the world. She just made FHM’s 100 Sexiest list, and she’s dating A.C. Slater from Saved by the Bell. Karina’s in the middle of her fourth season on the show and has been partnered with boxing star Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the past. I asked her what it was like for Floyd to take orders from a woman, how tough this whole dancing thing really is, and how much funny business goes on behind the scenes. Our interview follows, and make sure to vote for Karina Monday night and Tuesday morning (text 3405). And if you’re not going to vote, just remind your wife, girlfriend, and kids to do so. Besides, do you really want Jason Taylor or Kristi Yamaguchi whatever to win? Didn’t think so. OK, check out the interview …
One of the best writers and bloggers out there, if not busiest, is Michael David Smith. Smith writes regularly for FanHouse, Pro Football Talk, the New York Sun, Football Outsiders and FoxSports.com. He has also written about football for the New York Times, the Orange County Register, Deadspin, The New Republic Online and ESPN the Magazine, and he appears regularly on WSCR radio in Chicago. He has contributed to several books, including the annual Pro Football Prospectus. His weekly feature, Every Play Counts, was described by the
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I assume that most of you who are reading this are pretty hard core sports fans just like me. Probably somewhere along the line you had a dream of working in sports, that is, if you couldn’t make it as an athlete. With that in mind, I had a conversation with Adam Schefter who is the lead reporter and information man for the NFL Network, and a writer for NFL.com. Adam is a former President of the Pro Football Writers of America, has authored three books, and covered the Broncos for 15 seasons. Schefter brings some of the best NFL information to the forefront on a daily basis, and he breaks some of the biggest stories in the business. I thought it would be cool to find out how Adam got to where he is today, and what it’s like to scoop the competition on several key NFL stories. Our order of conversation includes:
