Ozzie in jam over Castro comments
IT DIDN’T take Ozzie Guillen very long to spark outrage in South Florida.
The Miami Marlins manager apologized just days into the 2012 season for praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in a recent interview with Time magazine. The mouthy manager is known for speaking his mind, but as a leader of a team that just moved into a $600 million stadium in Miami’s Little Havana, his comments were not a good public relations move.
“He hasn’t been in Miami for too long, so he doesn’t know how many of us have endured terrible experiences with the Castro regime,” said Francisco Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an anti-castro group based in South Florida.
“He’s entitled to his opinion, and we are hoping we can talk to him and explain things about Castro he doesn’t know,” Hernandez added.
Hernandez will get his chance on Tuesday, a Marlins’ off day, when Guillen will meet with the media and fans at Marlins Park to field questions and apologize again. Guillen said he would fly to Miami from Philadelphia, where his team beat the Phillies, 6-2, on Monday, before returning north to rejoin his team for Wednesday’s game against the Phillies.
“I want to make everything clear what’s going on. Then people can see me and know what I think,” Guillen said. “I think it’s the proper thing so people can see my eyes and ask every question they want to ask.”
Guillen told Time that he loves and respects Castro because of the communist’s longevity. Guillen is a native of Venezuela, one of Cuba’s strongest allies, and he is friendly with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, who traveled to Havana on Sunday for additional treatment for the cancer that threatens his life.
But Guillen’s comments did not sit well in South Florida, where thousands of Cuban exiles settled after Castro took power in the late 1950s. Decades after the Cold War ended, Miami remains a center of anti-communist and anti-castro sentiment.
Vigilia Mambisa, an anti-castro Cuban exile group, said it will boycott the Marlins until Guillen resigns. Guillen’s bosses with the Marlins, perhaps hoping to contain the damage, released a statement that called Castro “a brutal dictator who has caused unthinkable pain for more than 50 years.”
“I want to apologize for the things (I said) that hurt somebody’s feelings,” Guillen said on Saturday in Cincinnati, where his Marlins beat the Reds.
“I want them to know I’m against everything … the way (Castro has) treated people the last 60 years. I’ve read a lot about him.”
Guillen has also apologized to the Marlins’ Spanish-language broadcast team. Both Felo Ramirez and Yiki Quintana were born in Cuba.
Luly Duke, the founder and president of Fundacion Amistad, an organization that promotes people-to-people exchanges with Cuba, said Guillen’s comments were “unfortunate” but she is satisfied with his apologies.
“One of the things I take from this is that Cuba has 11 million people in need of support from the Cubans in Miami and in the rest of the world,” Duke said. “It is a waste of time and energy that could be used to do something more fruitful on behalf of the Cuban people.”
Guillen is known for controversial, off-the-cuff statements. In 2006, he called Chicago SunTimes columnist Jay Mariotti a homosexual slur. He later apologized for offending gays and lesbians. He has also criticized the way Major League Baseball treats Latino players.
Guillen has not been afraid to express his political opinions, either. In 2010, he spoke out against an Arizona law aimed at illegal immigration.
— With News Wire Services