On Tuesday, April 10, the Miami Marlins suspended general manager Ozzie Guillén for the “I love Fidel Castro” remark he made during a recent interview with TIME magazine.
The five-game suspension came on the same day that the Venezuelan-born former ballplayer delivered an apology to the team’s Cuban-American fans at a press conference at Miami Stadium, coincidentally located in the famous Cuban neighborhood of Little Havana.
It’s a bit shocking that an utterance as innocuous as “I love Fidel Castro” could bring the free-wheeling former White Sox manager to his knees – this coming from the same man who shouted “¡Viva Chávez!” after his team won the World Series in 2005.
It’s likely Ozzie wouldn’t have incurred so much wrath had he been managing a clubhouse somewhere far away from anti-socialist, anti-Castro crowds of South Florida, maybe in a city where the Latinos have more nuanced political opinions and a clearer understanding of the past.
In the same interview with TIME, Ozzie seemed to remember what team he’s now steering and immediately understood that he had invited the condemnation of crotchety Cuban exiles and their descendants who dream of the days before Fidel and little brother Raúl (known to history as the Batista dictatorship).
“I respect Fidel Castro,” Ozzie quickly clarified. “You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that son of —— is still here.”
Cuban Americans who anxiously await the return of a pre-Castro Cuba (a brand of Cuban American particular to South Florida and similar to modern-day Confederate sympathizers) soon demanded Ozzie’s head on a plate.
It’s unfortunate to see a maverick like Ozzie – who has probably never had to apologize for something he’s said since he was nine – have to kowtow to people who want every American to paint the aging Cuban leader and his followers with a wide brush (they also seem oblivious to the glaring irony in their commitment to censoring rival political views).
The anti-Castro Cuban crew is staunchly opposed to even the slightly possible notion that – gasp! – there may be admirable and reprehensible aspects to the Castro regime. Sure the Castros detain people indefinitely in Cuba and likely torture them till they confess (truthfully or not) to crimes against the state, but so has the U.S. commander-in-chief since 2002. (They hate us because of our freedom-ishness.)
What’s best about Ozzie is that he’s not only a pinko supporter of Fidel and Chávez, he’s also an American patriot.
As manager of the White Sox, he instituted a controversial policy of fining players $500 each time they missed “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“If you’re not from this country,” Guillén explained then, “you should respect the anthem even more than Americans because you should feel pleased you’re here. And if you’re from this country, you should have respect for people who are dying for it.”
So for the record, let me declare that I love Ozzie Guillén, a patriot and a dissenter.
¡Viva Ozzie!
About Hector Luis Alamo, Jr.
Ozzie has the right to express his opinion since this is a free country..for those Cuban-Americans that are disagreeing with him, must not forget that they left Cuba because they could not do the same
well, thats what he gets for being stupid…
I totally agree with you Ray, but the Marlins are a privately run organization with the majority of it’s fan base consisting of Cuban-Americans. What Ozzie said was very bad for business. Considering that they are calling for the firing of Ozzie, the fact that the Marlins only suspended him shows that they really want him and are trying to diffuse the situation by doing so.
He should be able to speak his opinion.. Just because other people disagree doesnt mean he should apologize or be penalized..
while I don’t agree with what he said, this IS a free country and I think this suspension is a little extreme. Imagine if every coach was suspended every time they said something stupid?
You can speak freely but don’t say something that’s going to make your fan base angry…
I deplore how Ozzie was treated because if you can’t exercise free speech without your employer’s approval it’s a hollow right. We have to be mindful of our economic keepers, and realize the potential consequences of any of our actions or utterances. But, bottom line, I think Ozzie deserved better. Oh, and Viva Castro AND Cuba!
Ozzie had every right to express his opinion. Unfortunately we live in a society where everything has to be politically correct or you are condemened!! If CASTRO died this very moment how many Cuban Americans would pack up & move back to Cuba & give up all their free goverment subsidies?!. Would they give up their food stamps, section 8 rent, Medicaid, monthly social security check & move back to Cuba?! I Don’t think so!!!
As a Cuban American, this has always been one of my pet peeves with the “exile” community. The United States of America is not Cuba and in this country we have the right to say whatever we please no matter how idiotic it may sound and the pubic has a right to respond.
I believe that Ozzie has been humbled in a way he will never forget. While I’m not a fan of his, I’m also not a fan of these Cuban “exiles” who think they can push people around by shouting the loudest and I have to question exactly what type of “freedom” do they want Cubans to have
Peace.Ashley what do you get for being ignorant.is call Freedom of Speech,is in the Constitution of the US your liberty to speak is also his.tell the Amrican Cuban stop worrying about Fidel an Feed the Cuban Homeless in Miami.lets talk about that.
As a private person, Guillen can say whatever he wants about anything he wants. As a representative of the Marlins, he needs to toe the party line and only say what the Marlins approve of him saying. That’s the difference between free speech and “free” speech. If he can’t abide by the rules of his employer when he’s representing his employer, he’s welcome to seek employment elsewhere. I hear Castro is hiring people in Cuba.
I despise idea that the interests of a small group of people should dominate the entire public. As I ask in the piece, what Cuba are they longing to return to, the Cuba that existed under General Batista?
One of the greatest moments in American history occurred at the very beginning when General Washington retired from public life after securing American independence. If he hadn’t, we might live under a king to this day.
Fidel started out as Cuba’s Washington, but he was tempted into becoming its Napoleon.
Listen people, I do know that we have freedom of speech and thank God for that. but when you are in a career where your fans write your paycheck you HAVE to be careful what you say. You cant just say that you love a guy that has done nothing but hurt the Cuban people and expect for no one to
And lest we forget, there are two nations committing crimes against humanity on the island of Cuba.
If you haven’t been torture by the castro regime you would not know how the cuban comunity is feeling. When everybody talks about free speech we have to be careful what we say. If I was a manger and say adolph hitler was great and my community around the stadium was jewish you know he would be fire already. In cuba a man screams out during the popes mass down with communism and down with crazyold castro and he is never heard again. The cubans don’t want to return to batista like goverment just a chance to be free.
We have to follow Jesus’ advice (did I just say that?) and remove the 2X4 from our own eye before we start pointing to the splinter in our neighbor’s eye.
Hey hector I hope your not comparing washington to castro. Because washington was elected the cubans didn’t have that right.
Fidel’s paranoia about government subversion is well-known and well-founded. The U.S. government has spent hundreds of millions in dollars and over 60 years trying to topple Cuba’s government. We got attacked twice by Al Qaeda, and look how quickly we began trampling on the Bill of Rights! Imagine if we were a tiny island and Al Qaeda had a country — the strongest and wealthiest country — just 90 miles north of us. Americans would be asking, “What Bill of Rights?”
Not in Miami , Ozzie should have kept his ass in Chicago
If Osvaldo Guillen made this comments on his own without being part of an organization, Nobody would care because he is a nut case anyway. But he made this comment in the wrong stage and being part a large Cuban community. He is jeopardizing his job and his career for this stupid comment.
I didn’t know that ONLY Cubans went to Miami Marlins games? What about the rest of the fan base? The African Americans, Asian, Central & South Americans, The Europeans, etc…. Cubans are a bunch of cry babies who want someone else to take care of their problems (CASTRO). As history shows, the Dominicans had no problem taking care of their wannabe Dictator, they popped him while walking on the beach, end of THEIR Problema!!! I’m just saying…. CUBANS handle your own business!!!
When the state is under attack, from within and the outside as Cuba has been since the U.S. failed to invade the island in the early ’60s, rights are limited. There’s nothing new or strange about that. Maybe the U.S. should start working with Cuba and not against it.
And don’t think for a moment that Washington isn’t absolutely delighted by every report of government repression on the island — anything that further vilifies Fidel and socialism.
Welcome to America. The land of the free where nothing is free…. Not even the freedom to speak your mind.
I’m not even going to get into how patronizing, offensive and bigoted Mr. Alamo’s article when he says things like Cuban Americans unlike other Latinos lack nuanced political opinions and don’t have a clear understanding of the past, and when he recycles the old castroite myth that Cuban Americans just want to return to a pre-1959 Batista style government. I’m not even going to waste my time with that dribble. I’m going to get to the heart of this false controversy:
This has nothing to do with freedom of expression. The Marlins is a privately owned enterprise and they are in the business of making money. If an employee of theirs offends a large part of their customers [Cuban American Marlin's fans], then they have to take steps. Look at how the House of Christian Dior fired John Galliano for something less severe than what Gullen did. Guillen gave an interview to Time Magazine. Galliano was drunk half-out-of-his-mind and he was taped–off-the-record by a couple in a bar with whom he was having a fight. I work for a firm in NYC and I would never ever make a statement to offend any part of the community that I serve. I’m painfully aware of what could happen.
Nobody says Ozzie can’t love Castro or say he does. But nobody has to buy Marlins tickets if anything whatsoever about the Marlins organization offends them. Is that clear enough?
John Galliano is on camera saying, “I love Hitler,” and, “People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f**king gassed.”
If that’s “less severe than what Guillen did,” then I rest my case.
John Galiiano was drunk out of his mind and he was having a heated argument with a couple in a bar. That’s very different than giving a sober interview to an established journal like Time Magazine. When someone is drunk, he is not a normal state of mind. In any case, regarding what would happen to me vis-a-vis Hitler, what on earth does that have to do with this argument? What a cheap cop-out. Are you so intellectually bankrupt that that’s the best that you can do? But since you mention what would happen to me, let’s talk about what would happen to you–an independent would-be journalist, writer—expressing himself freely in an online forum if Castro were in power. Did you know that Reporters without Frontiers has listed Cuba as one of the most repressive countries for a free press in the entire world? Did you know that in Cuba, independent journalists can get up to 25 years in a dungeon for expressing themselves like you are now doing?
I’m afraid you’re not reading my words carefully enough, Mr. Suarez. I wasn’t talking about what would happen to you personally were Hitler still alive. I was still quoting Galliano. In the future, please pace yourself and make sure you understand what’s right in front of your nose.
I’m well aware that Fidel and his brother Raul are autocrats lording over a communist state where many freedoms — including the freedom of the press — are thoroughly denied. I’m not saying Fidel and his brother are benign leaders or that it’s better to live in Cuba than in the United States.
What I am saying is that there are degrees of good and bad leadership. There are degrees of freedom and democracy. Fidel has brought good things and bad to the island of Cuba, at different degrees at different times. And anyone who compares Fidel to Hitler or Stalin or Mao either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is misrepresenting the issue on purpose in order to confuse people.
In the U.S., the government isn’t trying to censor the press, but the citizens are trying and are somewhat successful.
No, Mr. Alamo, you didn’t say what would happen to me, just people like myself and people like my mother, forefathers, etc… being “f**king gassed.” Silly me for reading thinking that you were talking about me personally. In any case, what does this tangential discussion have to do with the argument at hand?
John Galliano is just one example of someone who paid consequences for offending a segement of the population. If you want to talk about someone less controversial, how about Lou Dobbs and how Hispanic groups pressured CNN to drop him because of his reporting on undocumented immigrants? Here are the groups that were pressuring for his ouster:
Belo, from a 2009 article in HispanicBusiness.com:
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2009/9/15/hispanic_groups_to_cnn_drop_lou.htm
The coalition pushing for Dobbs’s ouster calls itself DropDobbs.org. It includes The Hispanic Institute, Dolores Huerta Foundation, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Hispanic Media Coalition, National Puerto Rican Coalition and the National Council of La Raza.
As a result, Mr. Dobbs resigned from CNN. But if you don’t like that example. let’s go a little further back. Look up writer Carlos Alberto Montaner and how he was ousted as a television commentator from the largest Spanish Language Television station for remarks that he made that some Puerto Ricans took offense to.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/31/us/comments-on-puerto-ricans-embroil-hispanic-network.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
I guess that Cuban Americans are the one group that can’t protest when they are offended. We just have to suck it up, right?