Well, we knew that was coming, didn't we?
Jose Guillen has a well-documented history of blowing up, and he's on a long-suffering team in the midst of a 10-game losing streak that's included a no-hitter and now back-to-back horrendous losses.
Frank Robinson, the Hall of Famer who managed Guillen in Washington and maintains a good relationship with him, warned me during spring training, "Oh, he'll blow up in a second."
Let's just say that Guillen has blown up during lesser valleys.
So I hope we can quickly get past the initial shock of Guillen dropping f-bombs in a frustrated postgame, and get to what I think is an important moment in the season: how the team reacts.
For instance, I think it's interesting that Guillen went out of his way to have Trey Hillman's back.
Big league ballplayers give a lot of respect to other big league ballplayers past and present. That translates to managers, too, and I heard some wonder how Hillman's track record --- never coached, managed or played in the big leagues --- would go over in a major league clubhouse.
By all accounts, Hillman is an abnormally hard worker, and that's another main thing major leaguers respect: hard work.
That part of it obviously got through to Guillen, who has never been shy about putting his managers or GMs on blast when he sees fit, and this would've been an easy time to do it if Guillen had those thoughts in his head.
After all, Hillman isn't done with his second full month as manager and he's already been through a seven-game losing streak and now this even longer one.
The fact that Guillen not only didn't try to crush Hillman, but went out of his way to show respect to Hillman, is interesting, I think important, and not to be ignored.
The other thing that's important here is that someone blasted the team, in public, f-bombs and surliness included, with a group of reporters around to record it.
The last 10 years or so could accurately be called the Mike Sweeney years, and Sweeney had some incredible seasons, an undeniable presence, and his personality absolutely permeated throughout the clubhouse.
Sweeney is hugs and smiles, church and charity, and nobody who's met him will say a bad thing about him as a man. He truly is one of the nicest and most genuine guys you could ever meet, in or out of sports.
But I'm not sure it's a bad thing that the dominant clubhouse personality is now a guy with a track record of helmet throwing and cussing.
This team is fighting a culture of losing that predates virtually everyone on the roster and in the front office. This isn't just a Tony Muser, milk-and-cookies thing.
Then again, as a man whose opinion I respect a great deal points out, there's a fine line between a leader who tries to get something going and being a guy who blames everyone else (though Guillen did include himself in the group that needs to do better).
When we did a story on Sweeney being with the A's during spring training, a Royals player told me, "Everyone knows how nice of a guy Sweeney is. Everybody knows that. But sometimes it can't just be smiles and jokes and nice. Sometimes you have to get in someone's face. I'm pretty sure that's something this team could've used more of."
This team just got a heavy dose of that.
Let's see how they react.
Just wanted to say I like seeing some emotion. i know its a long season, and playing with too much emotion can be physically taxing...but...if you care about winning, and want to win, you got to get mad, angry..frustrated...blow up occasionally. I am wiling to bet it happens much more then reported. I bet it happens more so behind closed doors.
Olivo and Guillen have so far made themselves the emotional leaders. Isn't it interesting that they are some of the newest Royals? and they are leading the emotion?