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Ozzie Apologizes

At the end of practice today, Ozzie Guillen held court with all of the media, focusing almost exclusively on his A-Rod comments. No links or anything yet, but I've heard snippets of audio from the press conference.

I'll post some direct quotes when they become available.

Update [2006-2-17 20:7:4 by The Cheat]: [AP]

"I learned a lesson. I never took a first shot at anybody in my life and now I feel like I took the first shot. I feel embarrassed, I feel guilty. I wish I had not said it the way it sounds or the way I said it,"

...

"I don't call him a hypocrite in that way. Alex is not a hypocrite. I was just trying to say he doesn't have to please people. He doesn't have to make people from the United States or from the Dominican Republic or from Venezuela happy. When you do that, you sound like you are a hypocrite. You say, 'Hey I want to play for the United States and that's the team I belong on,' move on and that's it."

...

"I apologize to Alex Rodriguez, his family, his fans, the New York Yankee organization, to the White Sox organization," Guillen said. "That's the first time I feel like I did something wrong. I've been in a lot of controversial things before, but I think I started this one and I'm going to finish it. ... What I did to Alex was wrong. He can do whatever he wants. If he wants to play for Japan, fine for him."

The bolded portion is exactly what most people are thinking, but haven't said.