We’ll put to rest the mini-controversy regarding Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle’s articulated wish for Eagles quarterback Mike Vick to suffer an injury by sharing reactions from the two men to whom Buehrle reports.
Manager Ozzie Guillen and G.M. Kenny Williams.
“I don’t agree with what this guy [Vick] was doing, but it’s none of my business,” Guillen told ESPN (via NBC’s Off the Bench). “I cannot say, ‘Do this, don’t do that’ because I love bull fighting. People look at bull fighting in a different way than we do. [Buehrle has] got his own opinion, and I respect that. If somebody has to say anything about his comments, it has to be Vick. Nobody else has to say anything.”
As Rick Chandler of Off the Bench points out, Guillen’s passion for bullfighting prompted him last year to exclaim to the clubhouse at large the differences between bullfighting and hunting after video emerged of an angry male cattle getting into the stands during a fight.
“That’s a real sport,” Guillen said. “Not, ‘Oh, here comes a deer. How big are his horns? Let’s shoot it and take a picture with it.’”
Williams took a much more narrow approach to the situation..
“None of my business,” Williams said. “I’m putting that in the no-drama-for-Kenny zone. It is my business in the sense that he is a Chicago White Sox player, but it was the offseason, and he’s his own man.
“[Buehrle has] some very strong opinions about animal rights, and I support those. I wish that it would have been handled differently, but it wasn’t and that’s as much as I’m going to say on it. No drama.”
Unfortunately, the White Soxeses’ interleague schedule this year doesn’t include a trip to Philadelphia this year.
But they do play in Arizona. Maybe Buehrle will say something bad about Beanie Wells.