Marlins suspend Ozzie Guillen five games for Castro comments

[Bozita]

Source: AP

April 10, 2012 at 11:22 am
Marlins suspend Ozzie Guillen five games for Castro comments
By Steven Wine
Associated Press


Miami — Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen was suspended by the team for five games Tuesday because of his comments about Fidel Castro.

The suspension takes effect immediately. It was announced shortly before Guillen was to hold a news conference to explain his remarks, which caused a public backlash.

Guillen told Time magazine he loves Castro and respects the retired Cuban leader for staying in power so long. At least two local officials said Guillen should lose his job.

-snip-

The political firestorm came shortly after the Marlins opened their ballpark last week in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. The team is trying to rebuild its fan base with the help of South Florida's large Cuban American population.

-snip-


Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120410/SPORTS0104/204100381#ixzz1resuOTA5

[CBGLuthier]

1. I do not like Florida "cubans"

They just will not let it go. Like life under Batista was such a fucking picnic. For the rich, sure. Everyone else. Not so much. Yes Castro turned out to be somewhat of an asshole but the US has supported far greater assholes happily.

[Tom Ripley]

5. I just call them the Miami Crybabies

[RedCloud]

55. And yet Rubio can pretend his family was persecuted two yerars before castro!!!

Where is the outrage? Why aren't they demanding his ouster?

Oh yeah, they whipped up hatred against JFK.
They pretend more Cubans than Puertoricans flee to America.
They have way too much influence. Mexican americans should have the majority voice for latinos in the USA especially on foreign policy.

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Castro stole our plantation

For that fact, he will never be forgiven by those who grew rich off of Cuba's resources.

If it isn't obvious already, spend a little time out of the country and you will quickly realize just how bizarre and downright pathological our obsession with Castro is.

[Lost-in-FL]

33. Maybe for exiles...

but people are not blind to see how can such little country can do so much with so little. It is just making capitalism look bad.

[Odin2005]

3. The Miami Cubans can go fuck themselves.

A bunch of RW Fascist bastards!

[Daniel537]

4. Some things in this city never change.

Good fucking god.

[benld74]

6. Guillen isn't known for his verbiage in ANY language

[murielm99]

9. He's kind of a Venezuelan

Yogi Berra, isn't he?

My husband is a White Sox fan. He goes to games sometimes. I am nice about it and go with him, if other family or friends do not go. I grew fond of Ozzie when he was in Chicago.

I hope he is not in any danger. Those expatriates from Cuba are nuts.

[WatchWhatISay]

7. He must have thought he was in a country where people are allowed to express their opinions freely

Was that his mistake?

[hack89]

30. He had to know that he was in a country that punishes stupidity

alienating your fan base and potentially costing your bosses millions of dollars was not a smart move.

[Bill McBlueState]

60. this will be a hard claim to test

If the Marlins have low attendance and lose money this year, it will be hard to devise a test to determine whether it's because of Guillen's remarks or because the team is not very good at baseball.

[hack89]

62. True - but he still publicly embarrassed his employers

people have gotten fired for a lot less.

[lolita]

8. You have to demonize any society that promotes economic parity.

It's very dangerous to commend socialism and communism. One of the reasons why Ghaddafi wasn't allowed to live.

FUCKING ASSWIPES

[RufusTFirefly]

10. It's kind of the symbolic equivalent of this

Or this:



It's crucial to squelch the expression of ideas that diverge from the National Script. Failure to do so can be threatening.

Granted, Guillen can be a hard guy to defend, but that's what Freedom of Speech is all about.

[RDANGELO]

11. This is disturbing.

The guy gets suspended, probably without pay, for for an opinion.

[DallasNE]

16. And What He Said

Had absolutely nothing to do with Major League Baseball. Tim Tebow says a lot of stuff worse than this but he is viewed as a hero. The double standard is glaring.

[Scairp]

34. Thank you

This is such a crock. What MLB rule or reg did he violate by saying these things? Zero to do with baseball.

[hack89]

31. If you went out and said something that could cost your company a lot of money

would you expect to still be employed? Alienating the very people you need to buy tickets was stupid.

[CreekDog]

12. I think it's a bit much and for MLB when they usually just act on steroids, fights and gambling?

come on.

even Bobby Cox didn't get suspended for domestic violence.

[RufusTFirefly]

13. Nor did Guillen get suspended for homophobic slurs

This country's priorities are utterly out of whack. You will go crazy trying to make sense out of them.

[Son of Gob]

42. MLB didn't suspend him, the Marlins did.

[LibertyLover]

51. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig

said that he agreed with the Marlins' decision to suspend Guillein.

[Son of Gob]

53. Of course he did,

that doesn't mean he would've suspended Guillen. He's just showing support for an owner.

Here's a picture of why he could not have suspended him even if he wanted to.

[RZM]

14. This only happened because he's in Miami

While I'm not expert on the Marlins' finances, I imagine that the Cuban community there is an important aspect of their fan base. Failing to show official disapproval for Guillen's comments could probably affect the team's bottom line.

If Guillen managed the Twins, this would have made a ripple, but I doubt he would have been suspended.

[KamaAina]

15. Yet Curt Schilling was allowed to praise Boosh** to high heaven

without consequence, even though most New Englanders despised DimSon.

[hack89]

32. Schilling's comments were not going to cost the Red Sox a lot of money

Ozzie, on the other hand, pissed off a important part of the Marlin's fan base.

[NeoConsSuck]

35. Because Boston...

is a huge Republican leaning city?

[hack89]

38. Because demand for Red Sox tickets so exceeds supply

Last edited Tue Apr 10, 2012, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)

that any protest would have made no difference. They have sold out every home game for at least 8 straight years.

The Marlins don't have that kind of fan support.

And let's not lose sight of the fact that there are enough Republicans there to elect several repuke governors and one of.their present senators.

[Ter]

47. Bush was a sitting US President

If Ozzie praised the current US President, Obama, he would not have gotten suspended.

[RedCloud]

56. Bush was a bullshitting US President

Fixed that for you!

[yellowcanine]

17. Wait a minute. This is political speech. What was the context? If he did it

in an non MLB venue I think he should appeal, perhaps sue.

[Daniel537]

18. He said it in an interview to TIME magazine. And if you read the entire comments,

its clear he's saying it in jest. Some people just look for controversy.

[onenote]

49. what would be the grounds for his suit?

[yellowcanine]

50. If what he said was completely unconnected to baseball - violation of his civil rights of free

speech. It depends a little also on how his contract is written. If it has something about not making these kind of statements, which it might, then the team is off the hook I suppose.

[onenote]

57. Unless the Florida Marlins have become an arm of the government, there is no cause of action

The First Amendment protects against government regulation/suppression of speech. Private employers can fire people for their political views or just about anything else, unless there is a contractual restriction on the grounds for termination.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2002/07/can_your_boss_fire_you_for_your_political_beliefs.html

As for Guillan's contract, I would be surprised if it did not contain a provision that gives the team the right to fire him at will (and/or for actions deemed, in the team's discretion, to be adverse to the interest of the team). It certainly wouldn't be limited to "for cause".

[hack89]

58. I think pissing off a good part of your ticket buying fan base is connected to baseball.

You don't have the right to say stupid things that can cost your employer a lot of money.

[yellowcanine]

59. "ticket buying fan base" Which fan base would that be?

Year Average Attendance Total Attendance Major League Average

2006 14,384 1,165,120 2,598,741

2007 16,919 1,370,511 2,756,384

2008 16,688 1,335,075 2,755,082

2009 18,770 1,464,109 2,571,627

2010 18,826 1,524,894 2,563,111

2011 18,772 1,520,562 2,547,018

If it weren't for visiting team fans, who don't give a rat's ass what Ozzie says, there likely wouldn't be anyone attending Marlin's games.

[hack89]

61. The tax payers of Miami just funded a new half billion dollar stadium for the Marlins

Last edited Thu Apr 12, 2012, 06:50 PM - Edit history (1)

poking fingers in their eyes is stupid.

[yellowcanine]

63. Almost as stupid as funding a new half billion dollar stadium in Miami then.

If that is all it takes to make people stay home from the ball park that is the definition of wasting taxpayer dollars.

[Ter]

19. I don't agree with this, but...

When you play for Miami, you should realize saying pro-Castro statements in the most anti-Castro place on Earth isn't so smart. Sometimes you just have to bite your tongue. I do it all the time when dealing with right-wing customers.

[yellowcanine]

21. "Not smart" not the same as "should be suspended" though.

I honestly don't think the team has the right to do this. It would be one thing if he said it at the ball park in an interview while wearing the team uniform. But on his own time, I think the Marlins are on thin ice.

[Ter]

46. I didn't say he should be suspended

I said it's their right to do so, however. Marge Schott got suspended for saying something I don't remember, and John Rocker got suspended for offending gays and immigrants. Same reason, different things. Either suspend some, or all. MKB suspended them all, so it's fair. They suspend the right and left, so I'm ok with it. I don't think any should have been suspended, but oh well it's their right.

[Blue_Tires]

24. Of course the Marlins knew damn well already that

Guillen was never the type to "bite his tongue", or give a damn about offending anyone once he gets in the groove...Which is why he's one of the more quotable/interviewed baseball personalities...

The media attention and potential for controversy are near the top of the reasons why he was hired to begin with...For the Marlins to pretend otherwise is silly...

[cosmicone]

20. Miami Cubans are mostly thugs and members of organized crime

plus a few oligarchs who were stripped of their privilege by Castro's revolution.

They need to get over it.

[Enrique]

22. I thought he hated Hugo Chavez

i follow him on Twitter, maybe I misunderstood his broken Spanglish.

[Daniel537]

25. He does.

He was being sarcastic in what he said about Castro. The right-wingers are making a big deal out of nothing.

[Son of Gob]

54. This is what he said about Chavez 6 years ago,

"I like Chavez the man," he said. "I don't say I like him politically, because I don't agree with a lot of the stuff he does and says. But I have a right to like somebody, and I like the man. When I read about how hard he worked since he was 6-years-old to be president of Venezuela, I felt proud."

He added this about him the other day,

"I'd rather be dead than vote for Chavez"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/ozzie-guillen-hugo-chavez-marlins-suspended_n_1414976.html

[Judi Lynn]

23. Who has forgotten how the same people threw a city-wide tantrum, burned tires in the street,

and deliberately blocked traffic everywhere so travel to jobs was impossible, and also threatened the store-owners who wouldn't comply with their orders to shut down everything completely after Elian Gonazales was finally retrieved from his drunken great-uncle, Lazaro Gonazles, and delivered to his father, as the court order required? Good grief!

[center]





[/center]

Not nearly as well-known in this country is the interview given to Spain's El Pais newspaper by the powerful Cuban "exile" friend of Ronald Reagan, Jorge Mas Canosa, who fully believed HE was going to be the next President of Cuba as soon as the U.S. could find a way to overthrow the people's revolution and return all the damned pretentious, racist, crooked a-holes to power, the same ones who were so brutal, so corrupt they triggered the revolution themselves by making life unlivable for the great masses of Cuban people who stood behind it proudly.

Here's what Reagan, and Clinton, and both Bushes' friend, Jorge Mas Canosa told El Pais:

7/31/94 The Miami Herald reprints an interview with Jorge Mas Canosa from the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Mas Canosa was asked by El Pais whether he believed Americans would take over Cuba if Fidel Castro fell. The Herald quoted Mas Canosa as saying, in part, "They haven't even been able to take over Miami! If we have kicked them out of here, how could they possibly take over our own country?" (MH, 7/28/94; WP, 7/28/94)

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0146b.html

[Judi Lynn]

26. Anyone remember when they protested the Baltimore Orioles? Memory refresher:

Published Friday, April 30, 1999, in the Miami Herald


Orioles-Cuba game seeks to limit voice of protesters
By CAROL ROSENBERG
Herald Staff Writer

Miami's Ruth ``Chuny'' Montaner is searching for five seats in a row for next week's baseball game between Cuba and the Orioles in Baltimore.

She wants one for herself and one each for color photographs of Felix Bonne, Rene Gomez Manzano, Vladimiro Roca and Marta Beatriz Roque -- human rights activists now in prison in Cuba for writing a pro-democracy leaflet, The Homeland Belongs to Us All.

On Wednesday, the ballpark would sell her only two together -- way out in left field -- under limits designed to stymie significant protest inside Camden Yards at Monday's game.

Cuban and U.S. ball players may be planning nine innings of the Great American Pastime. But anti-Castro activists are already engaged in a different sport: They are trying to transform the game into a platform for political protest -- both against Fidel Castro and the U.S. policy of people-to-people contacts that is bringing the game to Baltimore.

More:
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/limitvoice.html

[Judi Lynn]

28. U.S. lawmaker protests Cuba-U.S. baseball games

March 23, 1999


U.S. lawmaker protests Cuba-U.S. baseball games

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Cuban-American U.S. lawmaker Bob
Menendez sent letters to President Bill Clinton and Baltimore Orioles players
urging them to reconsider two baseball games scheduled to be played
against a Cuban team, an aide said on Tuesday.

The Orioles on Sunday are to become the first U.S. Major League team to
play in Cuba since Jan. 1, 1959.

Some Cuba watchers have dubbed the Havana game and a May 3 contest
in Baltimore as an attempt at "baseball diplomacy" between Cuba and the
United States, referring to the "ping-pong diplomacy" involving a U.S. team
visiting China that helped thaw Sino-American ties in the 1970s.

But Cuban sports officials and the Orioles both have insisted this is a
sporting exchange with no political ramifications.

More:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/menedez.htm

Idiots!

[riverbendviewgal]

27. I was told about Cuba before and after Castro by my bus driver

I took public transit to and from work. It was a hour long ride and my stop was the last one so I often would talk with the bus drivers when there was no one else on the bus but me and the driver. One day I was talking with this driver and we talked about taking vacations....I loved Florida to visit and my driver said he had been going to Cuba for vacation for years. Mind you we are Canadians and there is not restriction on going to Cuba.

He said he had been going to Cuba before the revolution and during those times there was such a disparity between rich and poor. There was really no middle class. The rich lived high and well. The poor had no shoes, very little food, no medical care and only the rich had education.

He said after the revolution EVERYONE had food, shoes, pharmacies, doctors and all were given an education. He admired Castro very, very much.

I have never gone to visit Cuba but I do have friends who have vacationed there many, many times...and they love the country and the people who are not affluent but healthy, happy and there was no crime.

It is too bad that Ozzi said what he said as he does work for a corporation and as a manager it was not a correct thing to say.
These feelings should be kept to oneself in America..
The punishment seemed appropriate.

[Judi Lynn]

29. Great hearing from you, riverbendviewgal! Canada has always been far more intelligent about Cuba.

Some of us even are aware of what good friends Trudeau and Fidel Castro became over the years.

Thank you.

[got root]

37. i guess those freedoms we got have their limits

[hack89]

39. And this comes as a huge surprise? nt

[GeorgeGist]

45. From your comments upstream ...

you made clear that freedom isn't a priority to you.

[hack89]

48. It is a great priority

I also know that if I stand up and make public comments that would cost my company a lot of money, I would be fired.

[totodeinhere]

44. No, he has his free speech rights. The governemet won't throw him in jail for what he said.

His employer made a business decision to suspend him because they are located in South Florida and the right wing Cuban immigrant community is very strong there. They did not want a boycott. Businesses either fire or suspend people all the time for things they say. Remember Don Imus getting fired for calling Rutgers team members "nappy-headed ho's?" He had a free speech right to say that but it didn't stop him from getting fired.

[neurochaos]

40. I lived here in Miami all of my life

(43 years minus the 5 years that I served in the USMC), and for years after Whites fled north to Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach the Cuban community held this city hostage stuck in the 60’s unable to progress because they were more concerned with Cuba than they were with Miami. As the older Cubans died off and the next generation stepped up, especially after they lost the
Now there are other factors such as the swelling population of non-Cuban Hispanics in South Florida, but what you saw in front of Marlin Stadium today protesting is but a fraction of what it would have been about 25 years ago… and that’s a good thing.
PR over the Elian Gonzales debacle the city’s image improved as younger Cubans were less concern with Cuba and more concerned with making Miami what it is today.

[neurochaos]

41. Sorry - was meant to read like this:

I lived here in Miami all of my life (43 years minus the 5 years that I served in the USMC), and for years after Whites fled north to Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach the Cuban community held this city hostage stuck in the 60’s unable to progress because they were more concerned with Cuba than they were with Miami. As the older Cubans died off and the next generation stepped up, especially after they lost the PR over the Elian Gonzales debacle the city’s image improved as younger Cubans were less concern with Cuba and more concerned with making Miami what it is today.

Now there are other factors such as the swelling population of non-Cuban Hispanics in South Florida, but what you saw in front of Marlin Stadium today protesting is but a fraction of what it would have been about 25 years ago… and that’s a good thing.

[unkachuck]

43. the Miami Marlins....

....suspended Ozzie for speaking the truth??

....this is why I hate baseball.

[KamaAina]

52. You don't need to hate baseball

just the Marlins.

And to a lesser extent, the other recent expansion teams (the ones named after states or bays).