Not to be overlooked in the excitement of yesterday’s brawl between the Chicago White Sox and the Kansas City Royals over a Sox pitcher hitting the Royals’ Miguel Olivo and subsequent ejections that included the always diplomatic Ozzie Guillen was Guillen’s tacit admission that he orders his pitchers to throw at batters.

As others have already noted, that’s hardly a secret that Major League managers order retaliation but leave it to Guillen to actually say it out loud.

He was trying to make the point that he did not order D.J. Carrasco to hit Olivo by pointing out it was the wrong time (bases were loaded) and the wrong pitcher. Carrasco was tossed for hitting Olivo; Olivo was tossed for charging the mound and eventually slugging catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and Guillen was tossed for arguing about Carrasco getting tossed. Kansas City won the game, 14-3.

“You think I'm going to bring in somebody to hit somebody with an 82 mile-an-hour fastball?” Guillen said of his own pitcher, Carrasco, who is more a sinkerball guy than a heat guy. “I'm going to bring in my best guy and make sure we get it done. That's the baseball I grew up with, not the [stuff] we play with right now.”

Yikes.

The funny thing about it is that as a defense for yesterday’s specific circumstance, Guillen’s point is well taken. But in the larger picture saying that there’s a right way and a wrong way to intentionally hit a batter is probably a wee bit impolitic.

So here’s the video.