Oz Fest 2006

Ozzie Guillen has kicked up an enormous storm of human fecal matter through a combination of insentitivity, candor, and adherence to baseball's culture. The resulting aftermath leaves a lot of interesting and unanswered questions about baseball, sensitivity, and culture in general.

It all started when Guillen ordered rookie pitcher Shawn Tracey to bean A.J. Pierzynski in retaliation for White Sox players getting hit by balls. Tracey apparently stood up against this order and refused to do it, which immediately resulted in him getting chewed out in the dugout by Guillen and shipped back to the minors, where he will likely stay unless/until he is traded.

This outburst prompted ESPN analyst Jay Moriatti to write a highly critical article of Guillen, which essentially said that Guillen has lost his mind, that the practice of retaliation by pitchers is dangerous, that Guillen was wrong for insisting that his rookie pitcher participate in that practice, and that Guillen is senseless, immature, and needs to get control of himself and grow up.

When asked about this article by the media, Guillen referred to Moriatti and his article using various explitives, including a three letter slur that begins with "F" and refers to homosexuals. That's when the situation really got out of hand. The media, of course, spread this information all over.

Guillen attempted to defend his use of the offensive terminology with the following excuses: (1) I'm from another country where that word means "weak and cowardly," not "gay" (2) I have lots of gay friends, and (3) the guy who cuts my hair is gay, and I have been to a Madonna concert.

At first, Guillen refused to back down from his comments, but he has since been persuaded to apologize, at least to the gay community. Guillen still refuses to apologize to Mariotti. Guillen has since been fined by the league and ordered to take "sensitivity training."

This story has been written about by virtually anyone and everyone who covers baseball in the media, for obvious reasons. However, most of this coverage has missed the things that are really interesting about this situation. For the most part, the media coverage has simply blasted Guillen's terminology as inappropriate, offensive, and hurtful. It was all of those things, but that's not what is really interesting about this story. What I find interesting is the following:

(1) First off, the practice of throwing at hitters in baseball is itself very interesting to me. It is very similar to the concept of "enforcers" in hockey. Basically, in hockey, if you cross check a star player, you better run for cover, because you are going to get hit. Very, very hard. In fact, you are likely to find yourself in a fight in the near future, if you can stay on the ice long enough. Because of this, of course, it is very rare that NHL star players are hit hard. This results in less injury to those players, which results in the NHL producing a better product generally...people continue to watch NHL hockey to watch those players play. Everyone understands that's how it works, and everyone on the ice is safer because of it. No amount of tight officiating or rule changes could be as effective at protecting the NHL's stars as this well known and common practice.

Likewise, in baseball, the practice of retaliation for beanballs, whether deliberate or not, is an important way to protect hitters who put themselves in harm's way on an almost daily basis during the season. People who are worth millions of dollars a year line up with a small piece of wood, while baseballs are hurled in their direction at high speeds. When that happens, you need to have an effective way to ensure that those people standing there with that little piece of wood don't get hit by the ball very often...otherwise, you could get a lot more injuries, Major League Baseball would have an inferior product, and everyone would get paid less. Everyone involved with baseball understands this (except, apparently, Shawn Tracey).

However, there is a conflicting goal...command of the inside of the plate. Most pitchers need to take command of the inside of the plate to succeed. The pitcher needs the batter to believe that the ball could come in tight at any time to keep him guessing. Jamming hitters leads to easy ground outs. Batters will come in close to the plate to try to take control of that precious inside territory, to limit the range of pitches they might see and improve their chances of getting a hit. Thus, it is common practice for pitchers to "brush them off" by throwing an inside pitch that would probably hit them if they don't move out of the way, but probably won't hit them assuming they make any effort to move. (This is why many pitchers are unhappy with Barry Bonds...he is allowed to wear armor which enables him to control the inside of the plate and eliminate the inside pitch, which undoubtedly contributes to his success as a hitter).

Thus, the practice of retaliatory beaning serves the purpose of balancing these competing interests...allowing pitchers a chance to command the inside of the plate, while ensuring that pitchers take care not to hit batters. Pitchers know that they need to throw inside sometimes, but they also know that if they get careless and accidentally hit someone, that someone on their own team is likely to get hit, and it will be their fault. This ensures that pitchers will take due care to avoid hitting batters, even in situations where giving up a walk wouldn't be a big deal.

Bottom line...in the end, fewer batters are hit by pitches because of the practice of retaliatory beaning. Thus, there are fewer injuries, baseball has a better product, and the players make more money. Everyone wins. Hitters who fall victim to retaliatory pitches understand this. When the retaliation pitch is done correctly and professionally, it hits the batter somewhere where the pain will be minimal (generally the upper thigh, hip, or butt...the pitch should never be much above the waist). Such pitches rarely elicit any sort of confrontation. The batter knows what's going on, and they appreciate that they were hit in a professional manner. Sure, they don't like it...but most understand why it happened and know that it is, in a way, for the greater good of the game. They brush it off and jog to first base...and that's the end of it. The system works.

(2) By the way, for all of the above reasons, Jay Moriatti is an idiot who has no business writing about baseball. Up until he used inappropriate language, Ozzie Guillen was absolutely right about everything that he said. Moriatti's article was unduly and unreasonably insulting and disrespectful to Ozzie, and Moriatti was just plain wrong. Moriatti obviously doesn't understand basic principles of baseball, incentive structures, and economics. He was just out to get Ozzie Guillen, and Guillen is not the sort of guy to put up with that, especially out of a guy who clearly doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. It's unfortunate in a way that Guillen took his criticism of Moriatti too far, because as a result Guillen ends up looking like the villian, when in fact he was absolutely right...except, of course, for the language he used to make his point.

(3) Shawn Tracey will never throw another pitch in the major leagues. Refusing to listen to his manager and misunderstanding the unwritten rules of baseball has ruined his career. He certainly won't be back up for the White Sox, and I'm not sure that any team in the MLB would want a marginal relief pitcher who doesn't listen to his manager. Time for Shawn Tracey to look into another line of work.

(4) Ozzie Guillen's response to his use of derrogatory language about homosexuals was much more interesting than the use of the word itself. Guillen responded with the traditional "I have gay friends, I like gay people" approach, which, of course, just doesn't fly. Then he took it a step further, saying that his hairdresser is gay and that he has been to a Madonna concert. I think these comments are more insulting to the gay community than the original use of the slur itself. Guillen is essentially mocking the media and the public for making a big deal out of this. While those comments might be good for a chuckle amongst those who merely pretend to have respect for the gay community, I think they just make the situation worse. Far from an apology or even an excuse, those comments are just a mockery of the idea that there is something wrong with using derrogatory and hurtful language to describe groups of people.

(5) Guillen's more interesting defense, however, was the cultural defense. Guillen claims that where he is from, using that word merely means that you are calling someone weak, a coward, less than a man. He didn't mean to refer to homosexual people per se...he was just saying that Moriatti is not manly.

It occurs to me, however, that the word is used in American culture in exactly the same way. When a guy calls another guy a derogatory term for homosexual, they aren't really questioning that person's sexuality or implying that they are sexually attracted to other men. What they are saying is that they are weak, feminine, and something less than a man. That, of course, is precisely what is wrong with the term. Gay people are not "something less than a man." Calling someone gay (or using worse terminology to call someone gay) uses a reference to homosexuals to invoke connotations that consist of inappropriate and improper stereotypes of gay people. It implies that being gay is something bad that should be looked down upon. It perpetuates the idea that being gay is abnormal, inferior, and that a gay man is not a man at all. That's precisely what makes the terminology hurtful and destructive.

So, in short, it doesn't matter whether Ozzie Guillen meant "Jay Moriatti is a homosexual" or "Jay Moriatti is weak and cowardly." If he meant the former, he implies that being a homosexual is a bad thing. If he meant the latter, he implies that being homosexual makes you weak and cowardly, and that weak and cowardly men are like homosexuals. Either way, it's offensive...and, frankly, American culture uses the term in the latter sense far more than in the former sense, just like Ozzie Guillen does. Guillen might think he is simply misunderstanding American culture, but he is wrong. He appears to understand it perfectly.

(6) An unfortunate side effect to all of this trouble is that it will persuade those associated with professional atheletics to be even less candid than they already are. Sports reporting has become extremely dry and formulaic, in part because any athelete with any sense whatsoever knows that if he or she says anything interesting, it will be blown out of proportion and can have a detrimental impact on their career. John Rocker is a great example of a person who ruined his career by speaking his mind a bit too much.

Unfortunately, this "sensitivity training" that Guillen is about to recieve will most likely consist of the following: "Hey Ozzie...you like that fat paycheck? Then keep your damn mouth shut. Talk to your team, talk to your family, talk to other people in baseball, but for God's sake, don't talk to reporters. When you do talk to reporters, don't say anything interesting. Here is a script of things to say when you win, and here's a script of things to say when you lose. Stick to the script if you value your job."

Ozzie is not likely to learn a damn thing, and baseball's internal culture is undoubtedly going to remain as intolerant as it is now. The only difference will be that one of the few guys in baseball who has the guts to tell it like it is might just know better next time.