How can you not love this guy?  I don’t care how controversial he is, he’s insanely funny, even when he’s not trying to be.  This guy churns out more one-liners and laugh-out-loud statements than most comedians do.  His recent profanity-laced bashing of the Chicago Cubs sealed the deal for me, as he said amongst other things that in the city, his team was referred to as the “Chicago [insert profanity here]“.  He went on to defend White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf after people called him a bad owner.  “We have the worst owner?  The guy has 7 rings (6 with the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and the 2005 World Series)”.  Who cares how much he swore, it was funny, and it makes me wish he was on my team.  He’s like an Earl Weaver on verbal steroids, which can’t be a bad thing, and he’s got everyone’s back, including the owner, and a lot of people get this mixed up with him being egocentric, but that’s clearly not the case.
He’s taking a lot of heat lately, after the 72-90 year the Pale Hose had last year and the current 6 game losing skid, but oh how quick people forget.  In the 4 full seasons that he’s managed, they’ve had three winning seasons, two 90 win seasons, and the 2005 World Series championship, but after one bad season you call for his firing?  Not fair, but it’s commonplace in this day and age, and not just in Major League Baseball, but all sports.  The fans should feel lucky to have such a loyal and “team first” guy as their manager.  If I were starting a baseball team today, he’d be one of the first guys I’d call in for an interview.  I can deal with the controversy, because I know I’ll get results and I’ll get a guy who won’t jump to another team unless he’s forced to.