Chicago White Sox: Ozzie Guillen’s career as a player
The Chicago White Sox have lots of great memories with Ozzie Guillen. His playing days make up a lot of those great days.
The Chicago White Sox had a lot of great days thanks to Ozzie Guillen. He was the manager that ended a World Series drought, not just for the White Sox, but Chicago baseball in general. It was a great team that saw a group of players come together as we have never seen before. Their 11-1 record in the 2005 postseason allowed them to win that memorable championship. It was one of the most memorable runs in the history of the MLB playoffs.
Well, some of the younger crowd forgets that Ozzie was a good player before his managing days. He was a great player for the White Sox which makes him that much greater. He played the first 13 years of his career with the White Sox before a few quick stops with the Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Manager of the year is one of his great individual accolades but he had some as a player as well. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1985. He was also a Gold Glove award winner along with three all-star selections. He wasn’t a Hall of Fame player or anything like that but he was certainly very good at times. His career WAR of 20.9 shows that he was a really nice complimentary piece.
He was also a part of that 1994 White Sox team that was so elite before the strike shut down the season and canceled the World Series. As good of a hitter as he was, he had almost no power in his bat. He only hit 28 home runs and had 619 RBIs over the course of his 16-year career. He did, however, have a career slash line of .264/.287/.338. He had 1764 hits along the way.
light. Hot. Remember Chris Sale striking out Manny Machado to win it all?
Obviously, he is always going to be mostly known for his managerial time with the White Sox that led them to the World Series but that doesn’t take away the fact that he was a pretty good player as well. Here in 2020, he still loves the White Sox and is a current studio analyst for them on NBC Sports Chicago. Having Ozzie as a part of this organization is awesome in more ways than one.