Ozzie Guillén’s Number Retirement: How to Watch, and the AJ Pierzynski Line That Steals It

AJ Pierzynski has two minutes to speak at Ozzie Guillén’s jersey retirement Saturday. He knew days ago how he wanted to spend them, and he already ran it past his wife.

She told him not to.

The line

It started with Ozzie, years ago, describing what it was like to share a clubhouse with the catcher who spent a career irritating everyone in the sport.

“When you play against AJ Pierzynski you hate him,” Guillén said. “When you play with him you hate him a little less.”

Pierzynski turned it around. When you play against Ozzie Guillén you hate him — but when you play for him, you hate him more.

He tested it at home while drafting his speech.

“My wife Lisa, she goes, you can’t say that. He’ll get mad,” Pierzynski said on Foul Territory. “And I’m like, no, actually I said that to him and he loved that line. And I’m like, I have to throw that in there somewhere.”

Guillén confirmed it on the same show, unprompted.

“That’s the best quote I ever heard anybody say about me,” he said. “Very honest. Very right. It’s right through my head, like boom. I love it. I love it so much. I still remember very clearly what you said. It’s funny.”

Then, directly to Pierzynski: “You better use that quote.”

Pierzynski gets two minutes. Guillén gets five.

“When I said they said two minutes, I said, well, that’s because Ozzie ought to talk for 40,” Pierzynski said. “So they can only give the rest of us two minutes.”

How to watch Ozzie Guillén’s jersey retirement

• Date: Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026
• Venue: Rate Field, Chicago
• Gates open: 4:40 p.m. CT
• Ceremony: 5:15 p.m. CT
• Ceremony TV: CHSN, exclusively — also on the CHSN app
• First pitch: 6:15 p.m. CT vs. Cleveland Guardians
• Game TV: Fox, national window — AJ Pierzynski on the call
• Giveaway: First 15,000 fans receive a replica Guillén jersey
• Tickets: Sold out

The split matters. The ceremony is a CHSN exclusive and the game is on Fox, so you need both. If you only want the tribute, CHSN at 5:15. MLB.TV will black out the national Fox game and in-market White Sox broadcasts, so a live TV package with Fox is the safer route for the game.

Guillén will also join the Fox booth for an inning.

“It’d be an honor to be with you guys,” he said.

Pierzynski laid down one condition: “You can’t cuss when you come on Fox on Saturday.”

Guillén’s answer was a career summary.

“I never curse on TV. I curse when I have a uniform on. Yes, I did a lot. When I have my uniform on, oh my God, every other word. Now when I have my suit or my sport coat on, I’m very, very professional.”

The 13th to get No. 13

Guillén becomes the 13th individual in White Sox history to have his number retired, and the first manager the franchise has ever honored that way.

His number is 13.

He joins Nellie Fox (2), Luke Appling (4), Minnie Miñoso (9), Luis Aparicio (11), Paul Konerko (14), Frank Thomas (35) and Mark Buehrle (56), among others.

He knows exactly what the number means and what it does not.

“Nobody retires for being nice,” he said. “When they retire your number and you’re not a Hall of Famer and you’re not in the 400, 500 home run club, 3,000 hits — you’re not even close to being part of that.”

And when it was announced in April: “They made me cry. Because I know how this moment is so important for my family. That shows you the White Sox organization care what I did for them.”

Relief for Venezuela

The White Sox are donating a portion of Saturday’s proceeds to earthquake relief and recovery in Venezuela, and Chicago White Sox Charities is running an auction with the Guillén family — exclusive experiences and memorabilia, plus direct donations.

Guillén was born in Ocumare del Tuy and came to the United States as a teenager without English. His wife Ibis joined him shortly after, also without English. They raised three sons in the Chicago area and have four grandchildren.

Forty-one years later, the franchise is retiring his number and routing money back to the country he came from.

He never stopped managing his country’s baseball. The photo above is from the 2024 Caribbean Series in Miami — the annual championship of Latin American winter ball, where the club champions of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico and other member nations meet every February. In Caracas and Santo Domingo it draws an audience that dwarfs anything a regular season game produces.

The Caribbean Series 12U begins Aug. 10, running the same structure down to youth baseball across the region.

Who is on the stage

Harold Baines, Mark Buehrle and Paul Konerko will join Guillén on stage, along with Pierzynski and CHSN’s Chuck Garfien.

The crowd will include Lance Johnson, Ron Karkovice, Mike Huff, Greg Walker, Roberto Hernández, Ron Kittle, Bo Jackson, Jesse Crain, Brian Anderson, Cliff Politte, Neal Cotts, Jon Garland, José Contreras, Joe Crede and Scott Podsednik.

Ken “Hawk” Harrelson will not be there. Doctors’ appointments in Florida he could not move kept him home. He turns 85 next month.

“I’m so proud of Ozzie and I always have been,” Harrelson told MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. “Ozzie is a super guy, he really is. I love him almost like a son.”

Harrelson on Guillén the manager: “I never saw a Sox manager who was a better manager than Ozzie. He got his guys to bust their butt. And if they didn’t, he would jump all over their butt. He instills in people what I call the TWTW — the will to win.”

Ken Williams, the general manager who hired him after the 2003 season, is in Italy on a long-planned family trip. He texted Merkin: “Very happy for Ozzie and his family.”

He has also spent years defending what that baseball means. Before this year’s World Baseball Classic final — the United States against Venezuela — Guillén pushed back on the idea that the tournament is a glorified spring game.

“People think it’s an exhibition game,” he told 104.3 The Score in Chicago. “It’s not, not for us.”

“I’m proud of what Latin America baseball brings to the United States. People can see the love, the passion. I’m proud to be a baseball person in Venezuela.”

Venezuela won that final 3-2.

Four decades, one franchise

Guillén debuted with the White Sox in 1985 on a team led by Carlton Fisk and Harold Baines, and won American League Rookie of the Year. He was a three-time All-Star shortstop, a Gold Glove winner, and a veteran leader on the 1990s clubs with Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura and Jack McDowell. He finished with 1,608 hits and 163 stolen bases in Chicago.

He came back to manage in 2004. His 678 wins from 2004 to 2011 tie Tony La Russa for third all-time among White Sox managers.

The 2005 club was in first place from the first day to the last and went 11-1 in the postseason for the franchise’s first title in 88 years.

“Thank you also to the 2005 baseball team,” Guillén said, “because that’s one of the biggest reasons I’m going to be up there.”

Pierzynski spent years pushing for it, and it cost him

“I’ve been clamoring, banging this drum for a few years now,” Pierzynski said. “To Jerry. To Jerry. I got deep trouble for that. But it’s fine. It was worth it.”

Guillén knew about it. After the 2005 team’s anniversary ceremony, he said, Jerry Reinsdorf called him about the former players who had gone public.

“He wasn’t sad, he was just upset,” Guillén said. “He was like, you was the only one. A couple guys went to the media and said when is Ozzie going to be retired, and you take a lot of heat from that.”

Pierzynski’s response on the show: “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”

Guillén’s framing was simpler. “That’s Jerry’s decision. Just Jerry’s decision to say yes or no, and he did it, and thank God we’re both alive.”

He is done managing

Asked whether calling Will Venable a Manager of the Year candidate takes him out of the White Sox job, Guillén did not hedge.

“I’m getting paid to talk bad about them. That’s enough for me,” he said. “I’d rather stay around with my grandkids. No trouble. I have a great life — maybe the best life I’ve had in my life right now, with my grandkids, and not having to worry about going to the ballpark and getting dressed and going to the hotel, the airplane, who got hurt. I’m out of that and I’m done. I’m really not looking to be managing anymore.”

The team honoring him is actually good

Nobody planned for this part. The White Sox lead the American League Central. They were buyers at the deadline, adding Luis Castillo, Liam Doyle and Joey Bart.

Guillén, who does not flatter people, likes them.

“They don’t have the type of talent like, wow, look at this thing,” he said. “But the way they play the game, it’s very, very fun to watch. They do a lot of little things over there.”

He singled out Sam Antonacci — “not exceptional talent, but everything he does is to win a game” — and called Miguel Vargas the glue of the club.

On Venable, from a man who says he is hard on managers: “He’s not lying to the media. What he has to say is very true, very honest. Every day is the same guy. No matter if you win or lose, he’s the same guy. No lies behind the scenes. Doesn’t make excuses.”

Then the context. This franchise lost 120-something games last season, 103 the year before, and 100-plus before that.

“Nobody thought the White Sox was going to be in this situation,” he said. “That they were going to be a buyer at the trade deadline.”

Two sellouts in one week

Saturday is Ozzie Guillén Day. Tuesday is Pope hats — all fans get one, honoring Pope Leo XIV, a lifelong White Sox fan.

Both are sold out. The South Side has two unlikely reasons to fill the ballpark in the same week it started winning again.

Guillén has spent fifteen years in front of a microphone and says none of it prepared him for this.

“I’m going to get nervous Saturday. I don’t know why. I just know myself,” he said. “It’s a little bit different when you talk about yourself, and the people who helped you get what you wanted.”

One more thing about the speech.

“I want to speak very slowly and make sure people understand what I say. Most people don’t understand what I say. That’s fine.”

Source: Foul Territory — https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wbvihSvgkAx1JhDJrEttO