Sport-Blog.com

Major League Baseball has announced the winners of the 2005 Manager of the Year award. In the American League, Ozzie Guillen of the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox took home the honors. Guillen received 17 first-place votes, 5 second-place votes, and 5 third-place votes for a total of 117 points. He easily beat out runner-up Eric Wedge of the Cleveland Indians, who received a total of 71 points.

This was just Guillen's second full year as manager of the White Sox, and he showed all season long that he could keep things loose and motivate his team to play day after day. In addition, he was very aggressive and was not scared to make some unconventional decisions when the situation seemed to call for them. More often than not, those decisions panned out for the White Sox as they won their first World Series title in 88 years.

Almost every player on the White Sox had an exceptional season, particularly the guys on the pitching staff. Jon Garland, Mark Buerhle, Jose Contreras, and Freddy Garcia were solid all season long. The bullpen was also outstanding for most of the season, and Bobby Jenks emerged as a dependable closer. The bats came around as well. Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, A.J. Pierzynski and nearly every other hitter in the White Sox lineup came through with clutch hits at one point or another.

This made things easier for Guillen as a manager - at least most of the time.

The White Sox played well beginning in April, and held it together until August when they started losing ground to the surging Cleveland Indians. The White Sox enjoyed a division lead as big as 14 games, but that slipped down to just a couple in the waning days of the season.

But it was then that Guillen really came through for Chicago. He somehow managed to rally his troops, and righted the ship before the postseason. In fact, the White Sox closed out the year by winning 16 of 17, including two series sweeps in the playoffs. During all that time, Guillen never veered away from his "small ball" approach to the game. The White Sox continued to focus on fundamentals and doing the little things right. They bunted, sacrificed, stole bases, and executed a lot of hit-and-runs - just as they had been doing all season long. In the end, it worked to perfection.

Even though I am not a White Sox fan, it's hard to live in Chicago and not like Ozzie Guillen. He is so candid and refreshing that it's fun listening to or reading his interviews. When you watch a lot of other sports personalities, you can almost answer every question for them because a lot of these players and managers just say the same things and use the same clinch over and over. That definitely wasn't the case with Ozzie.

Besides all that, Guillen just brought a lot of energy and excitement to the team. As a fan, it's nice to see players and managers who look like they're actually having some fun. Good job, Ozzie!