Ozzie apology manages to win back respect
THE PEOPLE WHO have suffered in Castro’s Cuba seem to have had a profound impact on Ozzie Guillen.
The Miami Marlins’ mouthy manager met for about 45 minutes on Tuesday with a group of Cuban dissidents before offering another round of apologies for the firestorm he set off in South Florida this week by praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in an interview with Time magazine.
Guillen cried as he listened to the anti-castro activists talk about oppression in their homeland, said Omar Lopez of the Cuban American National Foundation, an antiCastro group based in South Florida.
“There was a consensus from those of us who attended the meeting that he was sincerely apologetic,” Lopez told the Daily News. “We believe him when he said he was sorry.”
Guillen’s tears and apparently sincere and numerous apologies did not prevent the Marlins from suspending him for five games on Tuesday.
“The Marlins acknowledge the seriousness of the comments attributed to Guillen,” the team said in a statement. “The pain and suffering caused by Fidel Castro cannot be minimized especially in a community filled with v ictims of the dictatorship.”
Guillen appeared stunned by the backlash his comments in Time caused in South Florida, where thousands of anti-communist Cuban exiles settled after Castro came to power in 1959, and he said his statements to the news magazine were the “biggest mistake of his life” during a televised news conference at Marlins Park on Tuesday.
“I am very sad,” he said. “Very embarrassed. I let the ballclub down.”
“I betrayed the team,” Guillen added. “We live in a great moment in Miami. I hope the players continue doing what they’re doing and I’ll be back in five games.”
But Guillen’s apologies are not likely to soothe South Florida Cuban-americans who want him out. Vigilia Mambisa, an anti-castro Cuban exile group, has called for a boycott of the Marlins until Guillen resigns or is fired. Protesters who attended Guillen’s press conference stormed the doors of the new ballpark and threatened to break windows. They rebuffed the manager’s apologies and continued to call for his job. One man held a sign that said,“no apologies, fire him now.”
Guillen’s mea culpa also didn’t win him friends at Major League Baseball’s Park Ave. offices. “Major League Baseball supports today’s decision by the Marlins to suspend Ozzie Guillen,” commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement.
“As I have often said, baseball is a social institution with important social responsibilities. All of our 30 clubs play significant roles within their local communities, and I expect those who represent Major League Baseball to act with the kind of respect and sensitivity that the game’s many cultures deserve. Mr. Guillen’s remarks, which were offensive to an important part of the
Miami community Protester makes her case outside Marlins Park while inside Ozzie Guillen issues apology for his Castro comments. AP and others throughout the world, have no place in our game.”
Guillen had apologized on Saturday in Cincinnati, where his Marlins had played the Reds. He had planned on holding a press conference on Friday after the Marlins returned from a road trip. But when Cuban-american groups began talking about boycotts and demonstrations, Guillen returned to Florida from Philadelphia, where Miami is playing a series with the Phillies, to address the press.
“It was the wrong words, wrong language,” Guillen said. “What I was trying to say was what I’ve been repeating in this press conference, that I’m surprised he was in charge for so long. I’m not crazy. Although people might think I’m crazy. I know exactly who Castro is and that he has hurt a lot of people.”
Time quoted Guillen as saying he loves and respects Castro.
“You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that son of a (expletive) is still here,” Guillen told the magazine. Guillen’s comments in Time were not the first time he has expressed admiration for Castro. In a 2008 inter
view with Men’s Journal, the then-chicago White Sox manager told sports journalist Rick Telander that Castro was the toughest man he knows. “He’s a bull---- dictator and everybody’s against him, and he still survives. . . . I don’t admire his philosophy. I admire him.”
Guillen’s comments didn’t spark outrage in 2008, perhaps because he was working in Chicago, not Miami, where the Marlins just moved into a $600 million stadium in Little Havana and kicked off an extensive marketing campaign to woo the region’s Cuban-american fans.
Sports commentators have compared Guillen to former Reds owner Marge Schott, who infamously said Hitler was “good at the beginning but he just went too far,” former Dodgers general manager Al Campanis, who said that AfricanAmericans lack the skills to manage baseball teams, and John Rocker, the Braves reliever who ripped Mets fans and New Yorkers in a 1999 Sports Illustrated interview.
Guillen, a longtime proponent of Latin American pride, spoke out vehemently in 2010 against Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law, and he has criticized MLB for the way it treats Latino players.
He’s also expressed affection for Hugo Chavez, the president of his native Venezuela. Like Castro, Chavez has defied the U.S. in a region that has long been dominated by American business and military interests. And as with Castro, Guillen said that while he admired Chavez personally, he disagreed with many of his policies and attacked Sean Penn on Twitter last year after the actor criticized economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela.
Guillen is a naturalized citizen of the U.S. who has expressed admiration for his adopted country. He expects his players to be on the dugout steps when “The Star-spangled Banner” is played and has fined them for not showing proper respect during the playing of the anthem.
“A lot of people have been killed trying to make this country free for us,” Guillen told the South Florida Sun-sentinel in February. “You should be there for at least two minutes. Respect that, especially if you come from another country.”