Yesterday, it was the White Sox House

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Feb 14, 2006 6:30PM

The White Sox made their White House visit yesterday, where President Bush congratulated the team on their World Series title.

As expected, manager Ozzie Guillen was a no-show because he was vacationing with his family. He noted to reporters, "A lot of managers push their players toward baseball and not enough toward family. Baseball isn't going to be around forever, but family will be." He mentioned how throughout the season, he allowed players away from the team to deal with family matters. While Mayor Daley blasted Guillen's decision not to attend, Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf backed his decision.

In the East Room of the White House, Bush congratulated the team on their success and team-first attitude. He noted that, "It's easy to put stars on the field. The hard thing about baseball is to put people who can play together." Now, if only he could have done the same with his cabinet...

The former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, Bush never won a World Series trophy himself. Chicagoist wonders whether he thought about taking the Sox's trophy for himself. Kind of like when Vladimir Putin helped himself to Patriots owner Robert Kraft's Super Bowl ring last year.

Attending the White House festivities with the team were a number of politicians. Mayor Daley made the trip and was joined in the audience by a number of members of Illinois's House delegation and both Illinois senators -- Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. How governor and Cubs fan Rod Blagojevich was not there.

Also absent from the festivities was VP Dick Cheney. A number of Sox players were hoping to get in a quail hunt following the event. But Buehrle -- who proposed to his wife in a deer stand -- will have to wait. Maybe if they repeat in '06, they'll get a vice presidential hunting trip instead of another White House visit. Of course, with Cheney there might be too much risk of somebody ending up like Monty Stratton.

Photo via Yahoo!News