Guillen has earned players’ trust

White Sox manager credited with restoring confidence

? Forever looking for a laugh in any language, Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was asked last week if he thought the seven Hispanic players on his 25-man World Series roster should take an English course in the off-season.

“I hope they don’t,” Guillen said, “because my kids make a little money with them.”

Indeed, Guillen’s sons Ozzie Jr., 21, and Oney, 19, often act as interpreters during interviews for Sox players who speak Spanish as their primary language. When Jose Contreras faced the media at a podium at Angel Stadium on Oct. 16 after pitching the American League pennant-clincher, it was Guillen Jr. who translated his joy across the country.

The underlying message of that moment, a symbol of this historic season, required no words.

More than any other player, Contreras represents how small the communication gap is between player and manager in a heavily Hispanic Sox clubhouse. On a White Sox team without a superstar in the mold of Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds, Guillen is the marquee attraction, absorbing media pressure he is not afraid to place on himself. Players do not resent his top billing because his messages to them, in any language, are as direct as a fastball under the chin.

“You appreciate that,” catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “What you see is what you get.”

Whatever the language, Guillen has led the Sox with a voice that has carried them all the way to the World Series. Clearly, in Oz they trust, and nobody trusts the dynamo manager more than Contreras, the second-half ace of the pitching staff who refers to Guillen as “my friend.”

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen talks with reporters Monday in Houston.

Contreras credits Guillen, one of two Hispanic managers in major-league baseball, with restoring the confidence he had lost pitching in New York.

“(Ozzie) is a funny guy and he’s easy to get along with. . . . I think that’s why we’ve had the success we’ve had,” Contreras said through an interpreter. “It’s a friendship on and off the field.”

Other Latin-born players such as shortstop Juan Uribe and pitcher Freddy Garcia, Guillen’s relative through marriage, speak of feeling at ease around a fellow Latin who happens to be their boss.

Even tough-luck pitcher Damaso Marte, who briefly got on Guillen’s bad side when he was late to the clubhouse last month, said the absence of a language barrier improved his understanding of how that situation was handled.

“There’s respect,” Marte said.

Guillen helps foster that respect with something as simple as a daily greeting. He forges relationships that many old-school managers resist.

Typically, the Sox clubhouse resembles a fiesta. On most days, salsa music is blaring through the sound system or Telemundo is commanding players’ attention on the TV sets. The players occupying the middle row of lockers next to each other, on purpose – Contreras, Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, Garcia, Luis Vizcaino and Marte – appreciate the atmosphere.

Vizcaino used the Spanish words “mi casa” (“my house”) to describe it.

“I feel like this is like my second home and I’ve never felt that way before about a baseball team,” Vizcaino said.

Vizcaino came to the Sox from Milwaukee, where he played for Ned Yost. “He didn’t speak much Spanish. It made it hard. I felt more alone and less part of things. With Ozzie, every day he talks to you. It makes us feel together.”

Guillen did not enjoy such a luxury for much of his playing career. As a 19-year-old minor-league shortstop from Caracas, Venezuela, thrust onto the Double-A level in Beaumont, Texas, in the San Diego Padres’ farm system, Guillen had only “my bat and my glove to speak for me,” he recalled recently.

He picked up a few English phrases on the street and from former teammate John Kruk, now an ESPN analyst.

“I didn’t understand (anything),” Guillen said. “I was by myself, no car, nothing. Now, you go to Double A, they have someone there to kiss you, (ask) what you need, what can we do for you. When I was there, it was like, ‘If you’re no good, go back to your country.’ “

After being traded to the White Sox, for whom he started as a 21-year-old rookie in 1985, Guillen played for Tony La Russa, a rarity among managers in that he spoke Spanish.

“Just barely, (but) good enough,” Guillen said.

La Russa, now with the St. Louis Cardinals, is one of a handful of bilingual managers, along with Dusty Baker of the Cubs, Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels and Felipe Alou of the San Francisco Giants. The list is likely to grow as Hispanic players continue to gain representation on major-league rosters.

According to MLB figures, 24 percent of the 829 players on rosters this season were born in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela or Cuba.