NEW YORK -- With his gig as a World Series analyst for Fox coming to a close, Ozzie Guillen suddenly found himself Wednesday thinking about his real job as White Sox manager.
''My real job? Yes. I checked it out today and we're only 100 days away from spring training,'' Guillen said before Game 6 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. ''Wow. I was kind of disappointed.''
This TV job with Fox is something Guillen swore a month ago he would never do. After doing pre- and postgame reports for each game of the Series, Guillen -- at least entering Game 6 -- reached his goal of not dropping any of his trademark salty language into the commentary.
Aside from that, he seemed to enjoy himself.
''It was a great experience,'' Guillen said. ''Great people to work with. They made it a lot easier for me, especially [fellow analysts] Eric Karros and Mark Grace. They did a tremendous job to help me. They want me to do good stuff, and that helped.''
What was the hardest part of being a talking head?
''To me, the hardest thing was making a prediction about who is going to win,'' said Guillen, who waited until right before Game 1 to pick the Phillies in six games. ''I never liked that. I never agree with that stuff because you never know what's going to happen. There's no doubt it was the hardest thing.''
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was asked if center fielder Shane Victorino, who took an A.J. Burnett fastball off his right index finger in Game 5, was back in his lineup and Manuel not only said yes, he got on a roll.
''He's all ready to go, and he's hitting second,'' Manuel said, ''going to get four or five hits, and he's going to be fine, steal five bases.''
Five years to the day that he was hired as Phillies manager, Manuel was asked the kind of question that begged for some editing: ''Are you surprised at all how much success this franchise has had under your leadership?''
To his credit, Manuel answered the question without addressing the obvious back-handed compliment.
''I figured that it was a good bunch of guys and a lot of young talent and guys that wanted to play baseball,'' Manuel said. ''Actually I thought it was a good place.
''And since I've been here, I'm sitting here today talking to you because I've got good players. I always give them the credit. They have the best attitude I've ever been around. I've been in baseball a long time, best attitude, best chemistry I've ever been around. How much I put into it, I don't know, believe me.''
Yankees manager Joe Girardi kept Nick Swisher in his lineup despite the fact the former White Sox switch-hitter was batting .167 (2-for-12) in the Series entering Wednesday.
Girardi had benched Swisher -- and started Jerry Hairston Jr. in right field -- when Pedro Martinez started Game 2.
''Swish has been our every-day right fielder,'' Girardi said. ''We thought it was important that Swish just sit down for a day. His at-bats have been very good since we sat him down. We don't always look at how many hits you get. We look at the at-bats.''
Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher (remember him?) was on the field at Yankee Stadium during batting practice -- wearing a Yankees jacket. He was hanging with supposed Cubs fan and actor Jeremy Piven.