Well, the Marlins have suspended Manager Ozzie Guillen for getting quoted in Time magazine saying "I love Fidel Castro." Looks like we found out pretty early in the season how the Marlins front office feels about its new skipper.
This is not Guillen's first off-the-wall statement. Before he landed in Miami, he wasn't strutting around the league in three-piece suits waxing philosophical about the poetry of sport. He was getting drunk after road games and cursing in interviews.
The Marlins knew what they were getting into, and at the first sign of a ruckus, they threw their manager under the bus and sent him on a whirlwind groveling tour around the city to apologize -- direct quote here -- "with my heart in my hand and on bended knees."
He shouldn't have had to do any of it, because Ozzie Guillen should be allowed to say what he wants. The guy can barely speak English, and he still made it clear he wasn't talking about supporting Castro's regime in any way. The rest of the quote, per ABC: "I respect Fidel Castro, you know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherfucker is still here."
COMMUNIST!
Guillen said Castro was tough. Big deal. He did the same thing in 2008 when he, according to ESPN, told Men's Journal that Castro was "a bullshit dictator and everybody's against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes, they roll out the red carpet. I don't admire his philosophy. I admire him."
Oh, you disagree with Guillen? Get over it. Your baseball manager doesn't have to hate the same people you do. Unless it's the Mets. Everybody has to hate the Mets.
Guillen is a successful manager, and he's got two World Series rings to back him up -- one of which has the Marlins logo on it. And he deserves better than this.
