War Of The Words

It's better than winning the World Series, he agreed in response to a question.

He'll take his citizenship-test flash cards to spring training and make his players answer them, he said, laughing.

This is the greatest country in the world, he said again and again.

Guillen's e-mail address is public knowledge. He expected a landslide of messages from Venezuela condemning him: How could he, a man so recently draped in Venezuela's flag of blue, red and gold, say such things about the U.S.? Of course, he was ready with an answer. "Prove me wrong," he said. "I'm rich because of the United States, not Venezuela. My sons got a great education because of the United States, not Venezuela. I'm 42 years old, and I've [lived] 26 years in this country, not Venezuela. That doesn't mean I'm not a Venezuelan. But you think this is not the greatest country in the world? Prove me wrong. Tell me why we don't have Americans going to live in Venezuela and why we have Venezuelans coming to live here. Some people don't like to hear the truth. I'm more Venezuelan than Ch�vez is, because I represent Venezuela. He's our leader, but you ask people who they'd rather have [running] the country? They're going to vote for me.

"I'm not afraid. If they don't like it, what're they going to do? When I get home, they boo me? Big deal. Why do I have to worry about what people think? The thing is, what they think, they don't say. I say it."

With that, Guillen stood up, signed some autographs and took an elevator to the first floor. Security ringed him as he and Ibis and Oney burst through the doors and onto the sidewalk of Jackson Street. A black limousine idled at the curb. The security men stopped the lunchtime walkers in their tracks, clearing a path for the Guillens, and what had been a triumphant yet wrenching off-season for Ozzie took yet another turn. A young man held up his cellphone to snap a picture of him. A woman pointed: There goes Ozzie Guillen. There goes the mayor of Chicago, the king of Caracas and now a new American, not to mention the first citizen of a country of his own making, a land of Oz, where no thought goes unspoken and the talk never ends.

Guillen grinned and ducked his head and slipped into the limo's blackness. How did he get here? Ask him. Or don't. He'll tell you: The truth made him free.