Dangerous territory for Sox' Guillen

Maybe it was inevitable.

Maybe there was just no other way for this to go with Ozzie Guillen, who torched his team with such fuel and fire after Wednesday night's contest in Texas that you wonder if he has lost his players this time.

You hope not because the White Sox manager has so much to offer the franchise, and he remains the only manager to win a World Series in Chicago in the last 190 years of combined baseball.

But even GM Kenny Williams admitted this summer that he fears Guillen might do something at some point to get himself fired.

Williams isn't going to do it. Jerry Reinsdorf won't. Fans and critics can't. Not even bad players can get Guillen fired.

Only Guillen can get himself fired if his team quits on him, and he's walking on dangerous ground when he calls his players heartless and questions whether they care about losing.

There was a point this year when it sounded like Guillen had figured it out, that he realized the season was hopeless and that he wasn't going to go off the deep end, but now he has done just that.

Someone who spent time with Guillen when he was a coach in Montreal forecast this very day way back when the Sox hired Guillen.

He told me that Guillen would be great as long as things are good, but that it's going to get ugly when things go really sour.

Guillen's now living up to that cloudy forecast, and the hope here is that he regains control and finds a way to reach out to the veterans on his club who haven't given up fighting.

There's a difference between bad and indifferent, and the Sox this year have been bad.

Even if Guillen's right, that the players don't care, in this era of pro sports you can't expose the guys on the field or they'll show you what quitting really means -- especially if they lack the character to respond in a positive way.

The danger is that once you cross the line into calling your team gutless, it may be tough to get that clubhouse back.

Even if you think Guillen was right in what he said, and many will agree, there's nothing to be gained from calling out the players publicly.

This is 2007, not 1987, and only bad can come of it.

It's up to Guillen now to work some of that Ozzie magic.

Apropos of something, on the club's Web site Thursday night a headline read, "Buy your White Sox Ozzie Plan today.''

You just wonder if that was a direct request from a higher power to the players.

Tempting fate

Carlos Marmol saved the Cubs' bacon again Thursday night -- how many times have you heard that the last couple of months? -- but plenty of people still are asking about Carlos Zambrano's bizarre performance and behavior Wednesday night.

And wondering when someone is going to say something about it.

The Brewers were sound asleep when Zambrano chose to wake them up, when they were ripe to be picked, plucked and cooked.

Sometimes teams are collectively tired, deflated or simply slumping, and what you don't do is give them a reason to play again, and Zambrano did that with his histrionics.

If you've ever played sports you know that one of the most basic principles is respect your opponents and don't give them any extra reason to want to beat you.

Any Hall of Famer can tell you that, and every Little Leaguer can recite it.

Too bad no one with the Cubs is willing to explain it to Zambrano.

Ivan Boldirev-ing

Stanley Cup winning goaltender Mike Richter (1994 Rangers), now retired because of a 2002 fractured skull -- and apparently bored -- is about to finish his degree in ethics, politics and economics from Yale, and he has taken up marathon running to go along with his work in triathlons.

Richter will run in the New York City Marathon on Nov. 4 as a spokesman for ING's Run for Something Better program, which encourages boys and girls to participate in physical activities as a way of fighting obesity.

For more info, run to ingrfsb.com.

Sweater swap

About 8,500 people showed up at GM Place in Vancouver on Wednesday just for the opportunity to watch five players model the Canucks' new uniforms.

You hear 8,500 and you're thinking it takes the Blackhawks two Christmas-break home games to pull in that many.

Just thinking

Will someone please tell Aramis Ramirez it's OK to slide?

Best stat

Greg Maddux in August: 3-1 with a 2.37 ERA and 21 strikeouts vs. zero walks. Yes, zero walks. That's a 42-inning streak dating to July 28.

Just asking

If they made prisoners at Gitmo watch NFL preseason football, would there be international cries of torture?

Major league

CBS' David Letterman, on the Little League World Series: "My favorite part of the telecast is when the cameras show the players' wives."

The quote

Fox Sports Net's Rob Dibble, on Travis Henry's nine children by nine different women: "Shawn Kemp and Evander Holyfield are not impressed."

Best headline

Sportspickle.com: "Lance Briggs leaves Rex Grossman on the side of the road.''

And finally …

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald: "Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad agreed to fight next year. Boxing fans are excited. But not nearly as excited as they might have been had the fight happened in, say, the late 1990s."

brozner@dailyherald.com