I don’t know shit about baseball and really don’t like the sport very much. Doesn’t matter. This isn’t about baseball.
The most hated man in Miami
Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Miami Marlins, was quoted in a Time magazine article as saying he loved Fidel Castro. (he says they mistranslated his Spanish) Later in the article, he’s quoted as saying “I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that son of a bitch is still here.”
The Cubans in Miami are totally furious, they want him fired, at the very least. They’ve forced him to apologize and say what a horrible, evil person Castro is and suspended him for 5 games, without pay.
That’s fucked up. First of all, the guys got a right to his opinion. They hired him as a baseball manager, not a political leader.
Secondly, the whole anti-Castro fanaticism of the Cuban expat crowd is out of line, and way out of date. The revolution was over 50 years ago. Your side lost. You live in America and you’ve done very well. You are never going to get Cuba back. Even if things liberalize after Castro dies (and they probably will, a bit, his brother Raul seems to be a bit more moderate and there will definitely be some pressure in that direction), it will not be the same Cuba you left. Batista’s been dead for years. Ditto Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.
I guess part of what I’m saying is that Cuba wasn’t exactly a democracy before Castro, either.
This whole business of boycotting Cuba is absurd. It doesn’t help the Cubans, the friends and families you left behind. It hasn’t done a bit to dislodge the Castro regime -in fact, it’s had the opposite effect. And it deprives Americans of good cigars, some good rum and a really nice vacation destination.
Sure, Castro is no saint. He is a communist dictator. But he’s got some admirable traits. Cuba’s got great health care, and one of the world’s top environmental records. A higher literacy rate than the U.S. And, as Guillen pointed out, we’ve been trying to kill him for 60 years and failed every time.
So, here’s a creative solution, which should keep everybody happy. Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba. Send those prisoners somewhere else, or maybe just release them since they’ve never been tried and most of them haven’t even been charged with anything. Build a few luxury condos on the site, swimming pools, tennis courts, maybe a casino or two for old times sake and let all the old codgers from Calle Ocho move back home. They could be to Cuba like Taiwan is to China.
And let Ozzie Guillen say whatever he damned well pleases and get on with his job, which is winning baseball games.
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