Harrelson sorry for rant? Not exactly

If you haven't heard White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson unloading on home-plate umpire Mark Wegner during Wednesday's eventual win at Tampa Bay, well, dadgummit, you're not trying hard enough.

Hawk caught some serious heat from commissioner Bud Selig after going off on Wegner, who ejected Sox starter Jose Quintana without warning for throwing behind the Rays' Ben Zobrist in the fourth inning.

“What are you doing? He threw him out of the ballgame? You've got to be bleeping me!” Harrelson yelled during Wednesday's broadcast. “What in the (heck) are you doing? What are you doing Wegner? You got to be kidding me. That is so bad that is absolutely brutal. That is unbelievable.”

Before Friday night's game against the Mariners at U.S. Cellular Field, Harrelson was contrite, but not apologetic.

“The only thing I can tell you is that I know that Bud is the boss and Jerry (Reinsdorf) is the boss, let's put it that way,” Harrelson said.

But ...

“It's one of those situations that if I can tell you right now it won't happen again, I mean it,” Harrelson said. “But I couldn't guarantee it. It was one of those things that it happened. And I can't sit here and guarantee ... I'll tell you, I'm going to do everything in my power not to let it happen again.

“But who can say. I've snapped before, you know.”

Harrelson has long been an unabashed homer in the TV booth, making him loved by some White Sox fans and loathed by others.

In the Sox' clubhouse, most players said they had still not listened to Harrelson's attack on Wegner.

“Hawk's one of a kind, we all know that,” Paul Konerko said. “He played the game. A lot of the announcers, most of the time it's the play-by-play guy and the color guy. Hawk's kind of both. He's going to say what's on his mind usually, and that's that. Obviously as players, we find a lot of his stuff comical. It's good stuff to keep us occupied.”

Harrelson's comments are a hot topic around baseball, and even Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen had some thoughts.

“If I said that, I'd be in jail,” said Guillen, who played for and managed the White Sox when Harrelson was in the booth. “I'm not going to be suspended. I'm going to be in jail. They'd take my passport away and everything.

“Hawk is a very (passionate) White Sox fan. He takes stuff personal. I love that. I think the fans in Chicago love that.”