Miami Marlins Manager Apologizes For Saying He ‘Loves’ Fidel Castro

April 7, 2012 8:30 PM

Manager Ozzie Guillen of the Miami Marlins waves during Opening Day against the St. Louis Cardinals at Marlins Park on April 4, 2012 in Miami, Fla. (credit: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

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Cuba, Fidel Castro, Miami Marlins, MLB, Ozzie Guillen

CINCINNATI (CBS Tampa/AP) — It didn’t take long for Ozzie Guillen’s mouth to get him in trouble this season.

The Miami Marlins manager apologized on Saturday for telling a magazine that he loves Fidel Castro, a comment that prompted to team to issue a statement denouncing the Cuban dictator.

Guillen told Time magazine that he loves Castro and respects him for staying in power so long. When Guillen read his comments Friday, he said he felt sick because he knew how people would react.

Guillen called the team’s beat writers for a closed-door meeting before a game against the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night and apologized.

“I will apologize if I hurt somebody’s feelings, or I hurt somebody’s thought,” Guillen told the writers. “I want them to know I’m against everything 100 percent — I repeat it again — the way this man (been) treating people for the last 60 years.

“The reason I say I admire him is because a lot of people want to get rid of this guy and they couldn’t yet,” Guillen told the Sun-Sentinel. “That was personal, not politics. If you don’t read the article, it sounds ugly. The first time I read it I was like, ‘Wow, that’s going to get me in trouble.’ I understand that. I’m not hiding from anybody, especially people in Miami.”

In response to the magazine story, the Marlins released a statement saying, “There is nothing to respect about Fidel Castro.

“He is a brutal dictator who has caused unthinkable pain for more than 50 years. We live in a community filled with victims of this dictatorship, and the people in Cuba continue to suffer today.”

It’s not the first time Guillen, from Venezuela, has made a strong comment about a controversial leader. During his first news conference as Marlins manager in September, he bristled at a suggestion he supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“Don’t tell my wife that, because she hates that man. She hates him to death,” Guillen said. “I supported Chavez? If I was supporting Chavez, do you think I would be manager of the Marlins? I never supported Chavez.”

Guillen said he has never spoken to Chavez, but in fact he appeared on the Venezuelan leader’s national radio show twice in October 2005, when Guillen led the Chicago White Sox to the World Series title. At the time, Guillen said: “Not too many people like the president. I do. My mom will kill me, but it’s an honor to talk to the president.”

Guillen became a U.S. citizen in 2006, and he has been more critical of Chavez in recent years.

“It’s not my fault Chavez is the president,” Guillen said. “I didn’t put him there. … We got what we deserved.”

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Miami Marlins Manager Apologizes For Saying He Loves Fidel Castro

john West

You love Fidel? There is no reason to love that tyrant. If you love him…. go live in Cuba and shut up.

Bat Dizzle

Cuba gives all citizens 21 days of food. Unfortunately there are no jobs and 30+ days in a month.

Rob

When can we finally admit that the “diversity” experiment has been a complete and total failure?

Join the Council of Conservative Citizens, and let’s take our country back!

http://www.cofcc.org
Ed Padgett

Sounds like what President Obama and the Democrats want….Americans to totally be dependent on Government.
arizona today

Give a man food and you control his life; the man becomes a beggar dependant on government handouts. Degrading
PolarNakedBear

That’s a pretty good deal…21 days of free food a month, almost as good a deal as Amerika where if you just work part time, you get a full month’s of food. A couple gets over $300 per month in free food here, that’s why so many are so fat. Those Cubans have the right idea to keep the obesity rate down!
GR

What do you expect from Ossie, he comes from Chicago where Castro is chic, with a bunch of rich, mansion living, limo riding people who fancy themselves to be communists.

The home of Bill Ayers who was the son of a rich CEO of a utility co. Talk about a tough school of hard knocks upbringing!
Or the Barrack Obama son of a Bank President, who went to school at ever expensive private school from Hawaii, to Occidental College, to Columbia, to Harvard, talk about another tough life of hard knocks that would drive someone to communism.
comenovember

How did Guillen get into the U.S.? Why is he here? This country is beset by betrayers, saboteurs and American haters. Anyone who goes to these games needs their head examined.

Tim

So he can’t express his opinion or have his own beliefs….. or he should get out of America?

Thats the false freedom of the U.S. that we have all come to love so much right there….

jayhd

Sure Tim, he can say anything he wants. But since he is working for a team in an area of the country where a very large number of people and/or their parents and/or their grandparents risked their lives to get out of Castro’s island prison, he shouldn’t be surprised if he catches a lot of flack. And when your idiot statements have the potential to negatively effect the bottom line, don’t expect management to look to kindly on your stupidity, 1st Amendment or not!
Jim

You are 100% on the money. You’re allowed to have an opinion just make sure it’s the same as everyone else. Funny thing is that he hasn’t apologized for anything except this, so you know he means it.
ole’

He can express any thoughts he feels necessary. But when he steps in a turd pile, it doesn’t mean we all have to respect the smell it puts off.
lou stools

he can say anything he wants, just like you just did. he was just smart enough
to know that people would think he was an idiot for saying it and apologized…
we’re waiting….
Kelly

The government doesn’t own the Marlins so freedom of speech or opinion doesn’t matter here.

Tim

Land of the free……. unless you say something I disagree with then get the F out!!!

JMH

No one told him to get out. Neither does free speech guarantee that you will be exempt from criticism, nor that other may not exercise their freedoms, which include the freedom to tell you that you are an idiot, and the freedom not to patronize any business that you are associated with. Guillen can continue to say stupid things all he wants. No one is stopping him.

Some of you need to go back and read the 1st amendment to the Constitution. The right to free speech safeguards us against impediments put in place by Congress. It doesn’t give any one the right to have their speech heard, or to have their speech respected, or to have their speech even tolerated, by other citizens.
ConanTheRepublican

No, you flaming imbecile. What part of DICTATORSHIP do you NOT understand? Will you freaking tell me the last time Castro held FREE ELECTIONS?? TELL ME!!! The fact that this idiot manager would even THINK to utter ONE STINKING word of respect for this tyrant pig is absolutely atrocious! And I don’t believe he’s sorry FOR ONE MINUTE! He holds SOME kind of weird respect for a KNOWN MURDERER!!! He should be FIRED IMMEDIATELY!
liberty68

Free to say stupid things just as I am free to say he’s a complete idiot that values tyrannical dictators instead of the freedom that has allowed him to make a stupid amount of money coaching baseball

jay

Why not? I see little turds walking around with Che, Mao and ‘Hammer & Sickle’ shirts all the time….Why not Fidel shirts?

People are so stupid they have no idea what these guys are about. They just know they see idiots like Sean Penn saying they are cool guys. So they are.

We get what we deserve for being a nation of morons.

Doo-dah

I think Fidel Castro is a misery-inflicting communist d0uch3bag whose own daughter castigates him with much justification, but I am SICK AND TIRED of all the fake and forced “apologizing.”

If Guillen wants to tell the world how he “admires” Castro — or Karl Marx or Chairman Mao, for that matter — then that’s his idiotic prerogative. He’s not running for president or vying for a cabinet position. He said it, the apology is HOLLOW. It proves he’s an idiot about politics and world affairs. But his business is BASEBALL. Muy muy baseball. El grande baseball.

Oh well, I suppose it’s a bad reflection on the franchise.

Tim

He said he admires his resiliency….. and even though I don’t agree with his politics, its pretty hard not to admire Castro’s steadfastness and resiliency…. he just won’t go away… lol.

cjk

So I guess we should admire Hitler for his resiliency in the face of overwhelming odds?
You’re despicable.
ryukyutx

HAHAHA hohoho lol look at all the dead dissidents…lol.
Cari

Tim, you are a gigantic moron of a human being. I’ll bet you also are an Obama loving fool…

mike

You don’t say?

Some Treatment, and uh, a Breathalyzer

There’s something seriously, mentally wrong with Ozzie Guillen. I can’t say if he ate too much leaded paint off the crib rails as a child or if his parents were siblings, but something went very, awfully wrong in his would-be development into a mentally whole adult.

Not Chavez/Guillen

I think he and Chavez must be distant cousins
krp

He said that he hates Chavez. Castro is Chavez on steriods, so if he doesn’t like Chavez, he couldn’t possibly like Castro.

GFM2012

It’s not so outrageous… after all, in this very country, there are millions of deluded Socialist fools who revere the Marxist tyrant Obama. How sick is that?

incredulous

You see clearly. Sadly, too many posting comments are brainwashed fools. Their opinions were provided to them in a neat little box called TV or radio. They are stuck in a paradigm they may never escape from.
Stevart

Because the school system has been overrun by Marxist tyrants who teach only Marxist ideas and lecture against which is basis of western civilization.

http://www.freedomreport.org/miami-marlins-denounces-castro-after-manager-tells-mag-he-loves-him/ Miami Marlins Denounces Castro After Manager Tells Mag: He ‘Loves Him’… | Freedom Report

[...] (First column, 1st story, link) [...]
USMC

BOYCOTT the Marlins.

Go live in CUBA, Ozzie.

Joel

No one would notice, no one goes to their games anyway
http://enos33.wordpress.com enos33

Boycott Obama – he’s worse than Ozzie
Tim

Thats the way to show how we are the land of the free…. where freedom of speech, and the press, and religious belief trumps all…. unless of course you say something that offends right wing tea baggers…. then your automatically a commie and need to leave the country….

Not Chavez/Guillen

Ya Tim we also have the great equalizer to people like you who want to silence us. its called the second amendment. Anytime you want to play ball, let us know…..
Whitney

We just want him to be happy in a country with a leader he admires that’s all.
cjk

Go teabag your sister you chump. We all have the right to tell him to get the f*ck out, !st Amendment hypocrite.
Darren

Tim, it seems to be you that has the most trouble with people who have opinions different than yours. The posters here are stating their preference that Coach Ozzie move to a political climate more akin to his own, nobody here is threatening him. Grow up Timmy and realize that not only do most Americans despise a tyrant but especially citizens of Miami where many have suffered at the hands of Fidel personally.
What Say You

Tim – let’s try this one.

I think Global Warming is a fraud.
I think gay marriage is a joke. Nobody wants it.
I don’t see a right to abortion in the Constitution.
It was OK for Rush to say whatever he wants about Sandra Fluke.

How do you feel?
mike

Tim, if that is your understanding of free speech you are dumber than dirt and don’t realize it.

gerald

Acatullly, millions of people from around the world, including the U.. S., go to Cuba yearly to have a good time.

derek marlowe

They go because families send their teenage daughters out to ‘entertain’ the tourists for hard currency and everything can be bought cheaply.

Bill McCloud

When will these knuckle headed celebrities understand that they should keep their opinions to themselves? If Ozzie Guillen hadn’t been able to hit a baseball he would’ve been pumping gasoline in Venezuela for the last 30 years…he should be DAMN grateful to the United States of America, and he should shut his mouth about EVERYTHING EXCEPT for baseball.

AMS

he should be so grateful that he has ti give up his freedom of speech?

Bill McCloud

AMS, are you really so stupid that you don’t know that freedom of speech means that the GOVERNMENT cannot sensor your speech? But if someone is in a position that they are representing a business, that they CAN be fired? At a minimum, Ozzie should be suspended, because he has CERTAINLY made the Marlins organization and MLB look like fools. Selig won’t do anything, but Ozzie better be DAMN glad that he isn’t a coach in the NFL, or that he isn’t in the military, and pointed out that Obama is an idiot…

pjdjmj

Guillen, your admiration for vicious totalitarians sickens anyone who values human rights. You have shamed your team, family and yourself. We sincerely hope you are shunned and return to your sadly, now Communist country.

RLugz

I would like to add that been a Communist in America is easy if you really LOVE that system go live in it, You sicken me!

been banned

What do you expect from an admiited alchoholic—earlier in the week he came out and said for 24 years he has gotten drunk in the hotel bar after every road game, and then gone to sleep. 24 years of getting drunk like clockwork. His mind is saturated with booze, bad thought, and he has a foul and ugly mouth when he speaks. Unbelievealbe he shows no sympathy to even the population of Miami and South Florida—whom everyone knows has a large populace of Cuban Americans.

Management would be wise to understand “their first loss is their best loss” with this mental midget. Send him packing, even if you have to pay the man…He will bring nothing but bad publicity to your team, your fans, and your city.

Stan

Well said, I thought I would be not go to games because of the distance from my
Home but between that opening night disgrace and this dumb statement I will not
support the owner or the midget manger!!!!!!!

ONTIME

It’s not what you say it’s how you say it……..that was dumb.
Elle

A brand new stadium built in the middle of a community that is all Cuban immigrants. Another democrat in a state of blissful ignorance. The problem with commy light people like Ozzie and the Chavez and Fidel loving crowd in Hollywood is that they have no idea what’s it like to live under tyranny. Say something the government disagrees with and you are gone in the middle of the night. Those are nations of have nots thanks to the tyrants that have lead them into the ground. To think that people here are dabbling in marxism is astounding.
China has quickly learned it does not work and has been turning around. The greatest accomplishments about socialism/marxism/communism is that it equalizes all its citizens into one state; poverty. There, all are equally and wretchedly poor and miserable.. Message to the hollywood crown and rich folks: that includes you too.
Vote correclty in November if you don’t want to send your country into oviblion.

Brutally Honest

That’s funny, didn’t OUR GOV just pass the Indefinite Detention Bill? Hmmm… Which grants OUR gov the power to DETAIN ANY AMERICAN CITIZEN for and INDEFINITE PERIOD w/o need for a cause OR trial.

So again, tell me the difference between those tyranical countries and us? I’m lost.

Conspiracy is a real word

The difference is the American people have in their very identity the idea they are free. We have not fallen into full fledged tyranny until the people lose this. You, to be brutally honest, seem like you have.
Conspiracy is a real word

Don’t take it personally if the shoe doesn’t fit. It’s just that people are putting up resistance to tyranny when the say “Heh! this is America! Not here in the Land of the Free!”
It doesn’t necessary represent a factual reality, but the spirit that sentiment carries is real and powerful even in these times.

BobbyONJ

Great post Elle! Honest and accurate. Too bad too many won’t open their minds to what you wrote!
Tim

Your right, that state is a state of blissful ignorance, they elected Jeb Bush.

Ziggy

“Your right?”. Tim, you apparently also reside in a state of b.I.

mso88

Put this character on a slow boat to Cuba and leave him there. He has no place in American baseball.
http://buffalohair-jage.com/ Buffalohair

Now that treason is politically correct in America, I’m not surprised at such outbursts from public figures anymore. I’ll stick to Hockey eh…
http://emaillong.wordpress.com emaillong

Fire this idiot!
http://emaillong.wordpress.com emaillong

Fire the idiot! He’s toast.
PauvrePapillon

Would a European-American who said he “admired” and “respected” Adolf Hitler still be allowed to manage the New York Yankees?
NA

Ha, ha, ha!!! You foolish Floridians have no idea what you’re in for with this asshat and his loudmouth family. This is just the beginning. Enjoy!
-from a Chicago resident

JAC

How true! It’s all about Ozzie.

Jamal

Get rid of the traitor and give the job to an American

Fred

What’s more American than giving one of our jobs to some south of the border migrant worker?

John S

Ozzie Guillen is an idiot…plain and simple.
jimboster

“I will apologize if I hurt somebody’s feelings, or I hurt somebody’s thought,” Guillen told the writers. “I want them to know I’m against everything 100 percent — I repeat it again — the way this man (been) treating people for the last 60 years.”

Was Ozzie drinking again?
Miguel R.

Stick a gun up any Cuban’s behind and you will rule forever too
Osamas Pajamas

Guillen is an airhead and a candle in the wind. Any blowhard gasbag spokeshole for dictatorship can blow him over with one little puff.
HS

Ozzie Guillen is a blight on the Marlins and on Miami. His love for a murderer will hurt the team at the box office. Wise management would replace him before it is too late.

JAC

Wise management would not have made him a multi-millionaire by signing his sorry butt to the big money deal they gave him. Everyone in Chicago knows that Ozzie can’t manage a lick and just loves to hear himself talk. He is much better suited for The View than managing a baseball team. This is a really bad reflexion on Marlins management. The Marlins are doomed.

I. Hate Castro

Hey Ozzie:
What? This gomba Ozzie, knew how it would look to people after HE read his own words in the newspaper. How did he expect his own admiration for a social-psychopath like that sick commie SOB to look like in print? Jeez! Is Ozzie a moron, or what? Just asking. Hey Ozzie, stop smoking crack and STFU ! Ozzie is a true cabrone. Hey Marlins, show that your clowns aren’t just fried fish and fire Ozzie Guillen! He doesn’t deserve the privilage and he brings discredit and ridicule on the Marlins organization.
I. Hate Castro

California governor Jerry Moonbeam Brown also thinks Castro is a great guy. And, the facist democRAT party stuffed the ballot boxes and re-elected that idiot again.