WHY OZZIE GUILLEN RULES

Here's why Ozzie Guillen rules. In the 9th inning yesterday he took out Bobby Jenks. How many other managers have the set to do that? I can tell you Dusty Baker wouldn't have made that move. No way. He couldn't even change his closer after a whole offseason, bringing back LaTroy Hawkins to get rocked again. Sure that was after Borowski got hurt, but he needed to give 'his guy' another chance, instead of Dempster, who Hendry wanted to close games. Baker did the same thing with Perez and Patterson instead of playing Hairston in CF and having him lead-off. I believe that is the main reason that Hendry got Hairston (besides purging himself of Sosa). To bat first and be a catalyst for the offense. Hairston does this strange thing--he takes pitches and actually works the count and draws walks. Apparently this is rather helpful for the offense. Dusty "Sometimes the first pitch is the best one to swing at" Baker does not subscribe to that. Which is odd because he actually drew a decent amount of walks during his playing career.

But Baker probably isn't the only one. There are a lot of managers who wouldn't take their closer out because he is "the guy". Certainly Jenks being a rookie and Guillen having a plethora of well-rested arms to choose from helps. But still, the guy has proven time and again he has a lot of courage. He also seems to nip potentially harmful situations in a bud. When Uribe failed to run out a ball earlier this year, Guillen pulled him from the game and had a meeting with him right after the game.

"I could care less who you are, I don't," Guillen said. "If they want to see it, tell Frank [Thomas], [Paul] Konerko, [Jermaine] Dye or whoever don't run the bases, and I'll treat them the same way. That the easy way for any manager to lose his team. I'd rather win two games with the people who want to play then win a bunch of games with people who don't want to show up."

Uribe offered his excuse/reason and Guillen told him not to play amateur umpire. There is no slack. We often hear about someone being a "player's manager". So what style is more in line with being a "player's manager"? Different rules and lack of discipline with players or Guillen's style in which everyone has the same rules?

If Ozzie was hired to be the manager of the Cubs, he would have been the one to smash Sosa's boombox--while he was still on the Cubs. Guillen creates unity and demands hard work. Looks as if that might be paying off--even when some of his in-game strategies are a little off.