Rick and Weed are on summer vacation (wait; that didn’t sound right). Here’s your guest poster for today!.
By Rob Sylvester
I have a theory about White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen, and the theory is this; the man has Tourette’s. The mercurial manager, famous for his invective-filled tirades and profane mumblings, is currently being filmed (along with the rest of White Sox management) for a reality show on the MLB Network called The Club, which frankly sounds more like a show you’d see on The Food Channel or Logo, but is apparently a six-hour glimpse into the inner workings of a Major League front office.
Sitting! Posturing! Bailing AJ Pierzynski out of jail!
Berating an intern! More sitting! I haven’t seen it yet and I’m already bored. Thankfully, good ol’ Ozzie is there to bring life to proceedings like he only can — cursing enough to make Lenny Bruce look like Jimmy Stewart.
“MLBN has to bleep out some language. According to Peter Gavant, production executive on The Club: ‘Especially with Ozzie, our machines are working overtime on bleeping. But we’re not there to sensationalize.’”
Of course not. This is reality television we’re talking about here, not trash. Besides, who would want to sensationalize such dramatic occurrences as Jerry Reinsdorf eating a gyro or Guillen and team GM Ken Williams discussing what to do with Gordon Beckham’s dead body? While baseball diehards will no doubt love the all-access looks, the excessive length of the baseball season would seem to spread true drama thin, whereas the popular HBO series Hard Knocks owes its success to the tenser setting of an NFL Training Camp. Then again, the show’s executives say they’ve shot “hundreds and hundreds” of hours of film, so there may be six worthwhile ones in there after all (though I don’t envy the person who has to find them).
Regardless, more cameras on Guillen is always a good thing, as it increases the odds for a caught-on-tape meltdown or a full slide into reality TV star — before long Guillen will be wearing sunglasses at night and carrying a chihuahua in his purse (or, in the event of a trade, David Eckstein).
The White Sox are currently in first place in their division and on a 10-game winning streak, and with the show debuting on Sunday, it could come at a bad time if the Southsiders start to falter and fans view the diamond documentary to be a distraction. To those fans, I’m sure Ozzie would have more than a few words — and most of them would probably be four-letters.
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MLB reality show working OT to “bleep” Ozzie Guillen [Ben Maller.com]
