Weighing free speech For the crime of expressing a strange support for an unpopular Communist dictator, Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the Miami Marlins, has been banished from the dugout for five games. It may be the first time that baseball has punished political speech, and it would be considered an over-the-top reaction anywhere but South Florida. Other baseball figures have been disciplined over the decades for expressing racial hatred, including Jake Powell, a Yankee outfielder, in 1938, and John Rocker, a star pitcher for the Braves, in 2000. Marge Schott, who owned the Cincinnati Reds, expressed some admiration for Adolf Hitler, but the main reason she was suspended from baseball in 1993 was for slurs against Jews and blacks. Guillen's statements were of a different order. He told the Time magazine that he “loved” and “respected” Fidel Castro, not because of Castro's violent and destructive reign over Cuba, but because the man had survived for so long. No hatred was expressed, but that was enough to set off a firestorm in Miami, where the easily incited Cuban exile community immediately demanded his ouster. Guillen is well-known for many years of randomly bizarre statements, and the Marlins knew exactly what they were getting when they hired him. He was brought on to increase the popularity of the team among Latinos, particularly after it relocated to a new stadium in the heart of Little Havana, where attendance is just as bad as it was in the old stadium. The Marlins may be within their legal rights, but they should have thought harder before succumbing to the cries of a mob and punishing a political statement for business reasons. — Excerpts from a New York Times editorial __
