Mack and Company and… Ozzie

Mack and Company and… Ozzie

Mack Ade - Here's what I wrote about Ozzie recently on another site:

Ozzie Guillen says he likes and respects Fidel Castro.

These are the kind of stories that warm my cockles.

Why does it always take too long for sports to take out the garbage? You’ve got this floundering baseball team in South Florida that averaged around three paid fans a game, so you build them a gazillion dollar stadium in an anti-Castro neighborhood called “Little Havana”,and your manager tells the press that he loves the guy that tortured and killed many relatives of the fans you’re trying to get in the stands.

Can you image if this was a white guy?

Get this ass out of baseball and let him administrate John Rocker’s twitter feed.

Your thoughts? 

Jarod Alley -  What more can you say other than he is absolutely wrong. Fine him, suspend him and then, at the end of the year, fire him. Other than that it’s up to MLB owners to decide his future. You can not expel a man for being ignorant. However you can make a case for expelling the ignorant man for continuously ignoring his ignorance. However, there has to be some monumental tipping point that will get it there. What he said was wrong, where he said it made it much much more so. If the League doesn't find a way to get rid of this guy eventually than he will do it himself


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Matthew Grabusky - It was an ignorant comment, but I can't believe the amount of coverage it has gotten.  I think you have to feel a little for the Marlins.  They are finally trying to make baseball work in Miami, with Guillen being part of their plan, and he alienates an entire segment of the fanbase.

On a bit different note, how many people are there in the world who you are absolutely not allowed to make a positive comment about?  Clearly, Hitler from the past and Castro presently, but how many others could set off this type of reaction? 

 

Teddy Dziuba  - Let's not go all MSNBC on this guy.  He said he respects him because people tried to kill the guy for 60 years and they never got to him.  In that context, it’s just Ozzie being his typical macho, tough guy, blowhard self.  If Ozzie Guillen had said he loved Castro because he is a big fan of communism and he hates America's Free Enterprise system, then yes, fire the guy and find a way to deport him.  But he was just trying to toss in a little sensationalism - which Loria basically hired him to do - and he used a bad metaphor that struck a nerve with the heavily Cuban population in Miami.  The Marlins management made it worse by the way they reacted to the situation, they made it an issue when it really wasn't one. 

Jeremiah Alley - It's just Ozzie being Ozzie.  If anyone is really shocked by all this then they have probably been living under a rock for the last few years.  There are so many things that you can say about Ozzie Guillen.  Calling him a classy intellectual guy would not be one of them.  If there were a Mel Gibson Humanitarian Award, or maybe more appropriately, a Ty Cobb Humanitarian Award, then Guillen would undoubtedly have a very large trophy case at this point.    

Jorge Arangure‏ - And let's stop pretending Ozzie made a sophisticated political argument about Castro. He was trying to be funny and said something stupid 

Christopher Soto  - The Marlins knew exactly the type of figure they were getting when they signed Ozzie. One of the most polarizing and outspoken managers in the game. One who would speak his mind and mesh well within the Latin community. However I bet not even they expected to say what he said about Castro.

This was a BIG no-no for him and is going to have a significant impact towards the fan base. However, as we all know, wins speak louder than words. This may be a big deal now, but if the Marlins are fighting for a playoff spot in September then no one will remember this.

On the flip side, WOOHOO, another distraction for those pesky Fish >:-) As a Mets fan lets continue flying under the radar for a while.  

Reese Kaplan  -  I read the story about how he respected (not loved) Castro for being able to withstand all the attempts on his life for 60 years and is still ticking.  It's kind of like saying how you admire the resiliency of a cockroach or a rat.  It's not that you like them for what they are, but you respect their ability to survive.

In this case I think the media took what he said out of context and try to spin it into a pro-Castro schtick which, in South Florida, sells newspapers based on the controversy it creates.  As someone else said, Loria hired Guillen to bring some attention to his moribund franchise.  All of the sudden the Marlins are headline news nationwide...I think we call that crazy like a fox. 

Brian Berness - What he said was not as directly insensitive as anything John Rocker (foreigners and homosexuals), Marge Schott (Hitler's early years); or Al Campanis (blacks) said in recent memory. Should he have said it? No.

Contrary to what some people will inevitably say, this is not a first amendment issue. And if Ozzie gets fired, he will rightfully deserve it more for tarnishing the Marlin and MLB brands. A comedian once said that you can't fix stupid. And that applies to what all of the above have said and speaks to greater problems in our society that we haven't learned to deal with since 1607. 

Brant Rustich  - Just goes to show you don't have to be the brightest to be a big league manager 

Anthony Carnacchio - Lets face it folks, this is AMERICA. This wonderful country gives us the right to speak how we feel. As asinine as his comments may be, he has every right to say it. Whether it costs him his job, well that is another story.