I want to preserve any journalistic credibility (if there is such a thing on a blog) with a preface. I have been a lifelong White Sox fan. I love Ozzie Guillen. How could I not? Growing up a Sox fan, a World Series celebration seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream, a far-fetched musing of a young and naïve Chicago baseball fan. In 2005 my childhood dreams became a reality. In only Ozzie’s second year with the team, he along with general manager Kenny Williams, built something incredibly unique to Chicago baseball: a World Series Champion. Anchored by an amazing pitching staff and a small ball mentality which oddly enough still allowed the White Sox to lead Major League Baseball in home runs, the White Sox captured their first world championship in nearly 100 years. Chicago finally had a World Series champion again in what was one of the most dominant postseasons in the history of sports and we couldn't have been any more elated.
Ozzie Guillen became a Chicago hero, a legend, and it was incredibly fitting for a melting pot like Chicago. Chicago has a huge Latino population of nearly 1 million Latinos in the city alone. Before Ozzie our untouchable sports heroes included Bo hunk Mike Ditka and African American Michael Jordan, both of whom brought world titles to the city. No Latin American ever captured our hearts the way Ozzie did and Ozzie Guillen took his place in the pantheon of greatness representing what Chicago looks like today in the 21st Century, Hispanic. He was revered, some might even say adored.
Eventually the buzz wore off and Ozzie’s act wore thin with management. A bitter feud ensued between he and General Manager Kenny Williams. Still much of the fan base in Chicago loved their hero, even when he was unceremoniously fired by the Chicago White Sox last fall. To no one’s surprise he ended up in Miami where he was a coach for the Marlin’s last World Series run. Ozzie Guillen moved from being the manager of one Hispanic city’s baseball team to being the manager of another Hispanic city’s team.
Ozzie says a lot of things. Actually, that’s one of the characteristics I admire most about him. While in Chicago, he became infamous for praising socialist leader Hugo Chavez and attacking journalist Jay Marrioti’s sexuality. Ozzie has no filter. He never wears a free speech condom and truthfully what could be more American? Of course the Chicago sports media baited him into some of the most controversial sound bites of all time which was as entertaining as it was refreshing.
This isn’t to say I agree with everything or even understand most of what Ozzie says. I think he went over the line when he called former White Sox outfielder Magglio Ordonez a Venezuelan piece of excrement. Attacking Jay Marriotti based on the grounds of sexual orientation was also out of bounds and way below the belt. Although I don’t agree with everything Ozzie says, I steadfastly support his right to say it. What kind of American would I be if I didn’t?
This brings us to Ozzie’s most recent controversy where he praised unpopular Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for his staying power. Ozzie said that he admired Castro’s longevity and pointed out that people have wanted to kill Castro for sixty years and had only been unsuccessful in their attempts. As one can imagine, this started a firestorm in the heavily Cuban populated area of Miami. Cuban groups gathered to form protests and boycotts offering a seemingly uniform voice in their distaste and displeasure for the Manager’s controversial remarks. I admire the Cubans utilizing their free speech rights in the one country on Earth that is supposed to value them. Still, I couldn’t help but notice the hypocrisy of such a massive protest against an individual who utilized the same freedoms Cubans had so cruelly been stripped of under Castro. In an odd twist of fate, the Cubans had become more like Castro than they probably ever imagined possible and more like him than they would ever like to admit. They wanted Ozzie suspended. No, they wanted Ozzie fired. No they wanted Ozzie’s blood. No, they wanted Ozzie silenced for good. Politicians and local business owners lined up to do their usual pandering and cow towing to the local Cuban community and by the time the national media got involved, a real Magglio Ordonez storm was brewing.
With all this considered, I still didn’t think Ozzie Guillen would receive any discipline. It seemed unfair and hypocritical that an American (land of the free?) organization like Major League Baseball or the Miami Marlins would suspend a Latino Manager for utilizing his free speech rights. Nothing could be more Castro-like. Nothing could be more un-American. Still the Marlins disappointed me along with many other free speech enthusiasts by suspending Ozzie Guillen for a total of five games without compensation.
So let’s get this straight. In America we hate Communist dictators. They take away people’s freedoms. That is very bad. However, in America, where free speech is paid for by the blood of our young men and women in the armed services, if you utilize your rights to free speech (no matter how unpopular such speech may be) you can be suspended or fired from your job, ostracized from society, and if you ever want to work again silenced. Did I miss something here? Do we check our free speech rights at the door when we become an employee? If so, we have made America a dictatorship of bullies and corporations which are too often one and the same.
I can only imagine Ozzie’s recent suspension being propaganda fodder in dictatorships around the world. Why wouldn’t it be with such a headline as: TODAY IN THE LAND OF THE FREE: Ozzie Guillen suspended from America’s game for utilizing “free” speech.
Thomas Jefferson once said that a successful nation should be judged on how it treats the most unpopular minority. This includes people of ethnic groups, religious creeds, and even those who have the most vile and unpopular opinions. In America we are allowed to protest military funerals with the gospel of hate, we are allowed to support the mass murdering of millions of unborn children, we are allowed to hate the President or love him like a messiah. We are allowed to burn the flag or religious books. Ozzie Guillen; however, is being punished in McCarthy-like fashion for his support of a dying socialist dictator who has become increasingly insignificant in the landscape of global politics. In today’s America McCarthy would be a hero, not a villain. He would be lauded for his gift of silencing the unpopular, for stifling those who dare move out of step or out line from the paying masses. If America is judged on how we treated Ozzie Guillen for having an “unpopular opinion” then we fail any test of greatness and serve as absolute and unquestioned proof that the land of the free has increasingly become the land of the silenced.
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