Bombs Away

Well, at least Ozzie made it into March before dusting off his special brand of performance art:

Manager Ozzie Guillen fired Friday at former White Sox pitcher Brandon McCarthy for questioning the makeup of the Guillen's Sox clubhouse and alleging it possessed a negative atmosphere.

"I don't see Neal Cotts talking about me, I don't see Freddy Garcia talking about me," said Guillen, who also revealed he called McCarthy into his office last season about his late-night habits. "I don't see Timo [Perez] or Sandy Alomar Jr. or any of those guys. I think it was an unnecessary comment he made."

Guillen was perturbed especially about McCarthy's claim about the positive support he has received in Texas that he said doesn't exist with the Sox.

"When he says it was hard to fit in the clubhouse, when you have teammates like Paulie (Konerko) and Ross Gload and Jim Thome and (Jermaine) Dye, when you talk about clubhouse, I can say there's only one [jerk] in the clubhouse, and he's one of my buddies and that's A.J. [Pierzynski]," said Guillen, who initially revealed his displeasure with McCarthy in a Friday morning interview with WSCR-AM 670 host Mike North.

[snip]

In an interview with WSCR, Guillen expressed his displeasure with McCarthy's contention that he was uncomfortable in the Sox clubhouse because he and Brian Anderson were the only players who weren't married or didn't have steady girlfriends.

"I think Brandon should look himself in the mirror," Guillen said. "I say, 'Who is the bad guy in the clubhouse?' Then say it."You played with us 162 games and all of a sudden you leave and say you don't have a friend in the clubhouse, only Brian Anderson? Well, he picked the wrong guy to be friends with.

"People forgot that Brandon McCarthy got caught a couple of times out at night. I called him into my office and said, 'You been hanging around the city a lot, huh?' I said, 'I don't have a spy on you, but I know a lot of people in the bars in Chicago. I've been here for 20 years, and they will tell me everything.'"

[snip]

"He forgot he lost a couple of games for us," Guillen said of McCarthy, who was 4-7 with a 4.68 ERA. "He lost at least five of the 73. We might be in the playoffs without him."