By Dave Gorak
01/27/2006
When Ozzie Guillen, manager of the world champion Chicago White Sox, recently became a U.S. citizen he said some pretty nice things that you'd expect to hear from somebody just given the opportunity to live in this country legally, including: "Winning the World Series was not my dream, it was my goal. This [citizenship] is my dream." Glad to see that Ozzie has his priorities straight. But then he went and ruined everything:"A lot of people fight and die to be American citizens. [What??] A lot of Latin people are dying to be where I am right now … Do you know how many people die every week just to live in this country? Hundreds," Guillen said. "That’s a dream. A lot of people want to be Americans. It’s not an easy thing to do."
That’s what the ChicagoTribune posted in its early online edition, but look how the three-time All-Star shortstop was quoted in my print edition:
"Do you know how many people die every week trying to be an American? It’s not an easy thing to do."
Hmmmmmmmmmm. Somebody in the Tribune Tower apparently woke up and wisely suspected that Ozzie’s death count was high and away. (Assuming that Ozzie is talking about only those illegals who die attempting to cross the desert, the number for all of fiscal 2005 reached a record 464.) As a life-long White Sox fan (I became infatuated as a teen-ager with the "Go-Go" lineup of the 1950s), there is no question that Guillen knows how the game should be played and how to get the most out of his players. He doesn’t take crap from anyone, and he enjoys telling sportwriters what they can do with their often boneheaded questions. (Psssssst! Ozzie: Speaking of the media, now that you're an official American, it doesn’t mean you have to act like so many of our citizens, i.e., taking as gospel everything spewed out about immigration by the MSM, "immigrant rights" groups and the many disloyal, vote-pandering politicians in Washington.) Ozzie’s commentary, which made as much sense as a pitcher deliberately drilling a batter with the bases loaded, was no doubt gobbled up by certain groups among us as being further proof that our immigration policy is "broken" and can only be fixed with an amnesty. The majority of those who foolishly ignored the warnings against making the trip to El Norte were far more interested in U.S. dollars than they were in becoming "Americans." When Ozzie boasts he now knows more about America than "50 percent of Americans," then I hope he also accepts the idea that those who genuinely want to be Americans begin the process by entering this country in accordance with our immigration laws and then refrain from asking the rest of us to surrender our culture in order to accommodate theirs. Anything other than this is, well, you know, strictly bush league.
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