Ozzie Guillen suspended five games
Updated: April 10, 2012, 10:50 AM ET
ESPN.com news services
MIAMI -- The Miami Marlins have suspended manager Ozzie Guillen for five games for comments he made in which he expressed admiration for Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
"The Marlins acknowledge the seriousness of the comments attributed to Guillen," the team said in a prepared statement announcing the move. "The pain and suffering caused by Fidel Castro cannot be minimized especially in a community filled with victims of the dictatorship."
Speaking in Spanish on Tuesday morning in Miami, Guillen apologized to the city, its Cuban-American community and all Latin Americans for the comments, which were published on Time magazine's website last week.
"I feel like I betrayed my Latin community," Guillen said, according to ESPN's translation of his comments in Spanish. "I am here to say I am sorry with my heart in my hands and I want to say I'm sorry to all those people who are hurt indirectly or directly."
"I'm sorry for what I said and for putting people in a position they don't need to be in. And for all the Cuban families, I'm sorry," he said, according to ESPN's translation. "I hope that when I get out of here, they will understand who Ozzie Guillen is. How I feel for them. And how I feel about the Fidel Castro dictatorship. I'm here to face you, person to person. It's going to be a very difficult time for me."
Major League Baseball was reviewing the situation, a source told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney.
Guillen told Time magazine for an article published last week that he loves Castro and respects him for staying in power for so long.
A Cuban-American advocacy group in Miami, Vigilia Mambisa, has said it would boycott and demonstrate against Guillen until the Marlins fire him.
After the comment was published, the Marlins subsequently issued a statement clarifying that the organization has no respect for Castro, calling him "a brutal dictator who has caused unthinkable pain for more than 50 years."
It's not the first time that Guillen has praised Castro publicly. In a Men's Journal interview in 2008, Guillen was asked to name the toughest man he knows.
"Fidel Castro," he said. "He's a bull---- dictator and everybody's against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes they roll out the red carpet. I don't admire his philosophy. I admire him."
Guillen, who is from Venezuela but became a United States citizen in 2006, also praised controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2005. He had appeared on the leader's radio show twice and when asked about it, he said: "Not too many people like the president. I do."
Guillen has since been critical of Chavez. During his first news conference as Marlins manager in September, he bristled at a suggestion he supports 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's outspoken manner has gotten him into trouble in the past. In 2006, he was fined and ordered to undergo sensitivity training by Major League Baseball after using a gay slur during a rant aimed at a Chicago-area newspaper columnist.
Guillen, speaking Monday in the Marlins' dugout before their afternoon game against the Phillies in Philadelphia, said he felt "guilty" and "embarrassed" and wants to address questions personally. The Marlins have a scheduled day off Tuesday.
Information from ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark, ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney, ESPNChicago baseball reporter Bruce Levine and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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Ozzie Guillen suspended five games
