Well I guess pretty much everyone did.

I woke up this morning to an email on my phone saying that the White Sox had released manager Ozzie Guillen from his contract, at his request. While I’m not too surprised that it happened, I was surprised that it happened with only 2 games to go before the end of the season. Guillen has had talks with owner Jerry Reinsdorf over the last few days, and obviously the outcome was that he no longer wanted to stay with the team.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, there have been numerous rumours about us trading Ozzie to the Marlins, and Ozzie himself all but shouted it from the rooftops when he inadvertently published a post on his website saying how glad he was to be joining the Marlins. If it’s true, the official announcement for the Marlins will likely come on Wednesday after the season has ended, with rumours that we will be getting infielder Osvaldo Martinez and AA reliever Jahn Marinez.

The comments pages on the White Sox website are full of people saying good riddance to Guillen, but I for one am sorry to see him go. He’s been a fantastic (if outspoken) manager, and had a 678-617 record with the White Sox. He’s also the only manager in White Sox history to lead the team to more than one division/league title. I agree that this year has been shocking, but you can’t attribute all the blame for that to the Manager. I agree that he makes the decisions on who to play and who to bench, but you can’t hold him responsible for factors like Adam Dunn’s massive contract and the fact that he has been atrocious most of the year.

I look forward to seeing who is named as the new manager; I’m hoping it will come internally from someone who knows a lot about the team. I also wouldn’t mind someone like Sandy Alomar Jr, as he seems like a decent guy with a very solid baseball background.

For the remaining two games, Don Cooper is the interim manager, replacing Joey Cora who was apparently told by text that he was no longer needed (and is likely heading to Florida with Guillen anyway).

On a semi-related note, this is apparently the new logo for the Marlins. What do you all think? Personally, I really don’t like any aspect of it, the design is a big change from the current logo, and don’t even get me started on the colours!