There is no franchise in Major League Baseball that has done more to alienate and insult their fans than the Miami Marlins.
Not the Kansas City Royals with their laughable roster moves designed strictly to line the owners' pockets. Not the Los Angeles Dodgers, thankfully rescued recently from the megalomaniac owner the MLB approved simply because he flashed enough lucre in the purchase process (see a trend growing here?). Not even the New York Mets, whose years of mismanagement has made Bernie Madoff's shredding of so many personal financial fortunes seem amateurish in comparison.
The Miami Marlins, comfortably nestled in their new palace paid for with taxpayer funds thanks in large part to a local Government rivaling Chicago's corruption in the 1920s, have set a new low under the limbo bar for fan disdain and betraying the public trust of a baseball franchise.
Ownership could and should have avoided their very public gaffes. Sure, they gleefully and legally played financial dodgeball with taxpayers in wrangling for their new stadium. Nothing new there.
They played the standard game of "franchise departure" blackmail. Again, nothing shocking.
Their documented dealings with a corrupt city of Miami government helped to depose many of the frauds and cheats who lined their pockets with taxpayer cash.
And recently, club president David Samson, having a good time at a private gathering of Miami business leaders, reportedly mocked the Miami fanbase for being stupid.
"I don't have to hold back now that the stadium is built," Samson said, as reported by Miami Today. "We're not the smartest people in Miami. If you're in this room, you're instantly in the top 1 percent".
"We don't care if nobody comes (to Marlins home games). We'll play in front of nobody, and we'll have all the money."
These statements were followed by denials that any of it was said, or that it was uttered "tongue in cheek."
The only actual audio recording of the comments has not been released by the group which has declined all requests for it's airing. The reporters who were there stand by their stories. The Marlins and the group in question could have cleaned it all up in a matter of seconds by airing those tapes.
Because they didn't, one can only assume why.
Manager Ozzie Guillen is just the latest to publicly slap at a huge part of the fanbase and then cowardly offer an apology that has the sincerity of a Lindsay Lohan apology.
Guillen, who will never be confused with a Mensa candidate, was quoted in a Time Magazine article that he both loved and respected Cuba dictator Fidel Castro.
"I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that (SOB) is still here," Guillen said.
Saying you love and respect Fidel Castro while having lived in Miami for a dozen years and going to work every day at an office that is located just on the fringe of Little Havana ranks as one of the more empty-headed things he could have uttered, even in hushed tones.
This would be akin to living and working in Bosnia, saying you love and respect former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, both of whom were in a leading role of the Srebrenica genocide.
You think that's a little harsh? Pull back the emotional joystick for a moment and consider some facts.
Since overthrowing the Cuban government, Castro has taken an island with pre-existing progressive healthcare and drove it into the ground. In 1959, Cuba had 337 hospitals. In 1989, the number had decreased to 264. Disease in Cuba has steadily increased since 1959. Suicides in Cuba more than doubled over a 20-year span. Poverty is the "cradle to the grave" promise to the Cuban people.
The Cuban police state remains one of the leading repressive systems in the Western hemisphere. There are no basic human rights. One of his prized creations is the "Committees for the Defense of the Revolution" (CDR), which operates in every Cuban nook and cranny employing neighbors to spy on one another and turn people in for cash and Government favors.
Trying to leave Cuba without Government approval without sanction is punishable by what can amount to a death sentence in prison.
In 1992, thanks to a letter smuggled out of Cuba, the world learned of how the Castro Government treated AIDS patients. Already prisoners in filthy Cuban jails, they rioted demanding better food and medical attention. After being savagely beaten with blunt instruments, wooden sticks and rubber batons, many were transferred to maximum security and left to die.
Castro's regime is not only guilty of thousands of native deaths thanks to brutal restrictions, but their involvement in international conflicts in other Latin American countries and even Africa has aided in the deaths of thousands of innocents. Documented reports show Cuban terror troops working with the Ethiopian "government" denying food to hundreds of thousands starving people, all thanks to nothing more than political ideology. For decades the Castro Government has funneled money and troops to guerrilla armies throughout the world bent on nothing more than terror attacks and murder.
The man is guilty of genocide. Killing his own people for nothing more than failing to follow his warped Communist and Socialist agenda.
South Floridians will also never forget how then-President Jimmy Carter allowed Castro to empty his prisons and dump all of his violent felons on Miami Beach shores in the Mariel boatlift. Those who lost family members and quality of life thanks to the staggering rise in murder and violent crime that accompanied Castro's successful plan.
Those who make Miami and South Florida their home, many of whom live within walking distance of that shiny new Marlins Stadium, still recall being forced to flee Cuba in the later 1950s, taking whatever they could carry in two hands, one step ahead of the executioner. Most have made successful lives for themselves and their families, but still carry the emotional scars of never seeing their homeland through the eyes of freedom.
Love and respect this cigar-chomping murderer? Using those words in any sense, any stretch of the imagination, reveals what resides in the moral vacuum between Ozzie Guillen's ears.
Unlike Cuba, America is the land of free speech. You are allowed to say what is on your mind. You are given every opportunity to express your opinion. And I, for one, will never demand otherwise.
But free speech is not granted without consequences. You are still liable for what you say. You must be held accountable.
Ozzie Guillen and the Miami Marlins organization, his employer, must be held accountable.
No hollow words of apologetic revisionist history from Guillen will suffice.
"I will apologize if I hurt somebody's feelings, or I hurt somebody's thought," Guillen told team beat writers in a closed-door meeting. "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."
No fiery words from the Marlins in a press release will suffice.
"There is nothing to respect about Fidel Castro", states the release on the heels of Guillen's comments being made public. "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."
He should be fired. Immediately. Not suspended as some have called for.
Fired.
He won't be, sad to say. The Marlins will tell him to lay low and let it all blow over. They'll wait for the first long winning streak. Count the profits a new ballpark brings. Offer up a few more "meal deals" and discounted parking rates to soothe the hurt feelings of a few people of whom they may even say internally "never come to ballgames in the first place".
The Marlins have a chance to show they honestly care about their community and the people who reside there. The proud Cuban-Americans who are part of the workforce at the new stadium. Those who helped forge Miami into the multi-cultural home it has become to so many. Many of whom are my good friends from my time growing up in South Florida.
Do the right thing, Marlins. Fire him. Now.
Gullien admits he has been getting drunk after every game for the last 25 years, maybe more.
At least now we know it hasn't been on Cuba Libres.
Veteran Sportscaster Ed Berliner is also Managing Editor at "Sports Media Masters" (http://sportsmediamasters.com), daily providing video and stories from multiple network and regional beat reporters.
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