White Sox Manager Apologizes to Reporter for Gay Slur

By: E&P Staff Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox manager whose epithets against journalist Jay Mariotti unleashed national disapproval yesterday, has issued an apology, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

?If I hurt anybody with what I called him, I apologize,? Guillen was quoted as saying in reference to his use of a slur against homosexuals. ?But I wasn?t talking about those people, I was talking strictly about [Mariotti].?

Despite his issuance of a public apology, Guillen continued to challenge Mariotti in the Sun-Times, saying, ?I?m still waiting for Jay.?

?Jay?s a piece of [expletive]. He steals quotes from all the writers and makes money, and he?s not accountable. If he wants to know, he should be talking to me here right now. If he were a man, he?d be here with you guys right now.

?Why?s he so afraid to show up to the ballpark? ? Tell him to tell us where he lives, and we?ll bring him to the ballpark and we?ll have a conversation. But that?s the way he is. He?s garbage, still garbage, going to die as garbage. Period.?

Guillen?s belligerence has not merited a suspension from Major League Baseball so far, which Greg Couch, Mariotti?s colleague at the Sun-Times, demanded in a column yesterday.

In a statement released to the Sun-Times, Scott Reifert, the White Sox? vice president of communications, apologized to the fans on behalf of Guillen and the baseball club.

?We certainly hope our fans understand that the White Sox care about their opinions, and we also hope they know our organization wants everyone to feel welcome at the ballpark.?

In his own column in the Sun-Times today, Mariotti fired back at Guillen.

Titling his latest column "Sensitivity the Issue, Guillen the Problem," Mariotti made light of the personal abuse, saying, "I can shrug it off as an occupational hazard, knowing I'm called meaner things at the coffee stand every morning."

But he wrote that the Blizzard of Oz, as Mariotti calls Guillen, needs to be stopped.

"Twice in less than a year, Guillen has dropped derogatory homosexual terms in his public dealings as White Sox manager ... Obviously, Guillen hasn't learned his lesson ... "

Mariotti goes on to suggest a two-week suspension from baseball, one "long enough for human sensibility and decency to kick in."