Ozzie Guillen Bids Farewell To His Personal Lord Voldemort

Reaction to Jay Mariotti's resignation from the Chicago Sun-Times continues to pour in — there hasn't been this much freewheeling glee since the announcement of the end of World War II — and of course Ozzie Guillen is leading the hurrahs. While admitting that his own tenure in Chicago most assuredly comes with an expiration date, the White Sox manager still could not hide his satisfaction with the way things have played out with his nemesis, the man he notoriously called "a f——— fag" in 2006.

"When people wish the worst on people, you have to be careful because the baseball gods are going to get you,'' Guillen said. ''He was not asking just for my job, he was asking for thousands and thousands of people's jobs over the years. I'm not going to say I will get the last laugh because I will get fired from this job. But the day I get fired is the day I lose interest in this game. ''Am I enjoying this? Yes, because he tried to make my life miserable. He did everything in his power to make my life go the wrong way, but he didn't make me miserable because I don't believe him. Maybe if somebody else wrote that stuff about me, then I would put attention on it. And that's what he wanted. He wanted attention. He has to thank me because I gave him a lot of [stuff] to work with. I know I helped him the last four years to make his money, and, obviously, he did not help me at all to make my money.''

The Sun-Times' Chris De Luca collected several love notes to Mariotti in a column today, including the above from Guillen and this from White Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson:

'It's about time,'' said Sox broadcaster Ken ''Hawk'' Harrelson, another favorite target of Mariotti's. ''I know one thing, when he got that [contract] extension three or four months ago, he wouldn't have signed that extension if the things he's saying about the Sun-Times now were true. So he's spinning it again."

Now if the White Sox could just win the World Series this year, Guillen would probably — as Carl Spackler said in Caddyshack — be so fulfilled that he would achieve total consciousness. So he has that going for him. Sox On Mariotti's Split: 'It's About Time' [Chicago Sun-Times]