The primary reason that more players don’t talk about baseball’s unwritten rules is the first one on the list prohibits just such action. The clubhouse is a sanctified space, the rare—the only—place that ballplayers can communicate with each other, air grievances, goof around, act like teenagers and not worry a bit about repercussions from the outside world.

Unless, of course, one of their own starts blabbing.

We’re speaking of course about Oney Guillen, who last week took up for his father, White Sox manager Ozzie, when former Chicago closer Bobby Jenks (who recently signed with Boston) made mildly disparaging remarks to MLB.com:

I want to play for a manager who trusts his relievers, regardless of what’s going on. With the way Ozzie was talking this winter and the way he treated me, I don’t want to fight with the guy. How many times did he question my ability, and then saying how he would love to have me back, but I would have to come to spring training and fight for the closer’s role like anyone else?

Why would I come back to that negativity? I’m looking forward to playing for a manager [Terry Francona] who knows how to run a bullpen.

Necessary? No. But mild enough. People in all walks of life are usually well served to avoid burning bridges, but as far as Jenks statements are concerned, they could have been a whole lot worse.

Like Oney’s response, for example. In a stream of tweets, the younger Guillen didn’t just weigh in on Jenks’ quotes, but proceeded to spill many of the beans, real or imagined, he had on the guy. Several items from a wide selection:

•    hahah memo to bobby jenks get a clue u drink to much and u have had marital problems hugeee ones and the sox stood behind u
•    they did not air out ur dirty laundry, u came to srping not drinking and then u sucked and started srinking again be a man
•    u cried in the managers office bc u have problems now u go and talk bad about the sox after they protected u for 7 years ungrateful.
•    and u self diagnosed urself bc u didnt want to pitch un real i hope the sox let this guiy fucking have it
•    oh and yes i remember clearly u blowing a hugee game in 09 and u laughing ur bearded ass off while everyone busting there tail
•    one little story remember when u couldnt handle ur drinking and u hit a poor arizona clubby in the face i do. and later u covered it with

He also called Jenks a “fat ass,” a “yellow beard dipping idiot” and wished that AL pitchers came to bat so “they” (assumed to be members of the Chicago staff) “can drill that ass.”

This is bad. Very, very bad. Oney Guillen doesn’t have to answer to anybody, but he has to realize that his father could well absorb negative repercussions  for this, both within the clubhouse and from around the league.

This isn’t to say that Ozzie Guillen will lose the trust of his own players going forward, or that every free agent who gets an offer from the White Sox will let this incident color his decision on whether to play there, but it would hardly be surprising if those things happen.

If Ozzie was discussing sensitive clubhouse business with family members—and drinking problems and assault on clubbies fall under that category—he was entirely out of line.

The one thing that Ozzie has going for him is the fact that Oney Guillen was employed by the White Sox until March, and could well have picked up all his information first-hand, without a word from his father. (That said, Oney was forced out of his job in the scouting and video department after tweeting disparaging remarks about White Sox GM Kenny Williams.)

Oney again tweeted criticism of Williams in August, for having too few relievers available during a series with the Royals. Even then fingers started pointing toward Ozzie in response to his son’s behavior.

“What am I going to do, get fired because my kid said something?” the elder Guillen told USA Today at the time. “Anybody can say whatever they want. I never talked to Oney. I understand his point. He’s a fan. As my kid, sometimes you wish he doesn’t say that. But how many times do I say something people wish I don’t say it?”

(Oney defended himself on Chicago radio station WSCR Wednesday, saying that “there are millions of things that happen [in the clubhouse] that haven’t ended up on his kid’s Twitter account. You can’t say, off one minor incident, that everything that happens is going to end up on his kid’s Twitter account.” That’s not necessarily a threat to divulge more, but it could certainly be taken like one.)

Ultimately, whether Ozzie gave too much information to Oney, or whether Oney gathered it himself; whether Oney is telling the truth or making things up simply to lash out at Jenks; whether Ozzie should be culpable, even if he had nothing to do with it . . . none of it matters.

What’s left after the details settle is the impression that Ozzie Guillen can’t control the information coming out of his clubhouse, and his own son is the primary reason for that. White Sox pitcher Matt Thornton said as much on Chicago’s ESPN 1000.

“Anytime you bring clubhouse stuff out in the open, I don’t care what it is, it’s that person’s personal business and also the clubhouse’s personal business,” he said. “That’s the first time all this stuff has really irritated me. It doesn’t matter what’s true and what’s not true, I don’t care about that. The fact that anything was said at all is ridiculous. It’s definitely gotta be addressed and taken care of real quick around here.”

Thornton is an Ozzie Guillen guy (at least as long as they’re both employed by the White Sox).

One can only imagine what non-Ozzie Guillen guys are saying.

– Jason