Guillen has a little advice for his players

The White Sox have been playing like it's football season for weeks.

But after fumbling away a 5-0 lead to the first-place Detroit Tigers and losing 12-5 Saturday night at U.S. Cellular Field, Sox manager Ozzie Guillen teed up his players and started kicking.

"Embarrassing," Guillen began. "Very embarrassing. Not because we're out of the pennant race. I've been dealing with this for how many months, six months? Dealing with this for the next two, three days, five day, six days, whatever I have left, I'm not going to tolerate it. They think the season's over for them? Yes. If they think the season's over for me, no.

"And I'm going to make it clear. It's a bunch of (bleeps) out there watching football games like a piece of (bleep) with no pride. The way they (bleep-bleep) play, that's embarrassing. If you don't have pride to play this game and you don't care about it, get another job."

With apologies to the White Sox' fiery manager, let's take a halftime break.

"I know I'm going to be all over the stinking place when I talk about this," Guillen resumed. "I'm not in a pennant race, but at least I have some pride, and at least I have something to fight for, and at least I have something to show up to this ballpark and play for.

"And when you go out there and you turn your TV on and watch stupid (bleep) football, when those (bleep-bleep) football players don't give a (bleep) about you, that's embarrassing.

"We've got, how many games, seven games? They've got to put their (bleep) together. Because I don't mind losing games. That's part of the game. But when you lose games and you don't even care about it, we're going to have problems. I run this ballclub and I'm going to run this ballclub the way I want to.

"If they don't want me here, I'll get another job, or get me other players. But getting your (bleep) kicked like that, then all of a sudden you're watching football games, that's a bunch of (bleep)."

After his tirade, Guillen stormed back to the Sox' clubhouse and told equipment manager Vince Fresso he'd "destroy" it if there are football games on TV Sunday.

He repeated the threat for the clubhouses in Cleveland and Detroit, where the White Sox close the season next week.

Sox captain Paul Konerko appeared out of the shower unaware of Guillen's diatribe.

"You're asking me to comment on something I didn't see," Konerko said. "It's been frustrating the last couple of weeks. But I think the TVs were already on; I didn't see any players turn them on.

"I'm all for no TV, no music, no kids when we lose, across the board. I totally understand."