Baseball calls blowup over dolls team issue

5/7/2008 7:06 PM

CHICAGO (AP) -Major League Baseball considers the blow up over blowup dolls in the Chicago White Sox clubhouse a team issue, not a league issue.

Executive vice president for labor relations Rob Manfred said the league had discussions with the team after a player placed two nude blowup dolls in the clubhouse at Toronto, but called it ``fundamentally a club issue.''

An unidentified player positioned the dolls with bats of the players fanning out around them - a ritual of sorts to try and get the team out of its slump - before Sunday's game, a shrine that some found offensive.

Manager Ozzie Guillen said it was just a joke.

Guillen reiterated Wednesday he sees no reason to apologize, saying, ``I don't think we did anything illegal. It was just a funny doll.''

The Association for Women in Sports Media voiced its concerns about the White Sox's antics in an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times .

``The presence of those dolls creates an uncomfortable situation for any female journalist who enters the White Sox locker room simply trying to do her job,'' Jenni Carlson, the group's president, wrote this week.