UPDATE: Ozzie Guillen suspended five games

So if he'd already said the same thing, why the sudden outrage now?

 

Um, this is my point. This could have blown up at any time - and likely would have - when a Cuban-American in the community found this in his past.

 

1) Private profit-making company. No First Amendment issue (although they do play in a stadium largely constructed by public money, but never mind that).

2) At-will employee.

3) No MLB Managers' Association to file grievances on his behalf.

4) Undoubtedly Ozzie's agents/lawyers are combing over his own individual contract to see if he has any avenue of recourse, but my bet is he does not. Almost certainly there is some clause saying he cannot "make statements to bring the organization into public disrepute" or some such.

5) Best course of action for Guillen: STFU and sit it out.

 

For the rank-and-file Cuban, about the only difference between the time before Castro and now is that somebody was having a good time before Castro. Granted, it wasn't Cubans except for the ones who made a mint keeping U.S. gamblers and n'er-do-wells sated, but still...

 

He should resign for his own good, but he is too nuts to do it.

I really did not enjoy living in Miami, and my standard joke was that if I wanted to be put out of my misery, I could just wear a Fidel T-shirt in Little Havana and someone would shoot me dead within 10 minutes. Sort of like suicide-by-cop, only more certain.

In 1979 I was working in a different market, but a heavily Cuban one, and someone claiming to be from the Omega 7 phoned in a bomb threat to protest Fidel's upcoming visit to the U.N., and the cops had to herd a few thousand people out of the stands at a baseball game so they could search everyone's coolers for a bomb. I just about pooped my pants. The Cubans do not joke about Fidel and neither do the cops. Perhaps the people most passionate in their hatred for Castro are either dead or very old, but I would not bet against someone taking a shot at Ozzie. It would be an overreaction, sure, but I think the Marlins are maybe underestimating the situation. Cut him loose for his own good.

 

Don't worry Frank. He'll shoot himself in the foot again before the season's end.

 

You actually believe this, don't you?

Have you ever read about Communist Cuba, or any other Communist dictatorship?

 

I'm sure I haven't read the same sources as you. And no, I ain't gonna fawn over Castro, but I sure the fuck ain't gonna glorify Batista, either. I don't think you really read what I wrote.

 

And "you actually believe this, don't you?"....what kinda condescending crap is that?

 

Batista is believed to have killed 20,000 Cubans when he was in power, and American politicans and corporate leaders were fawning over him.

But please, go on.

 

The most virulently anti-Castro were the pre-1980 "exile" Cubans. They were predominantly middle- and upper-class people, and many of them had properties seized by Castro. Poorer Cubans didn't have the money necessary to get off the island.

 

This country has had rebels for the
last fifty years; it's part of
their blood. Believe me, I know...
I've been coming here since the
twenties; we were running molasses
out of Havana when you were a baby.
The trucks owned by your father.