Ozzie Guillen Lucky to Retain His Job After Castro Remarks

Ozzie Guillen said something stupid. That's no surprise. He says something stupid almost every day, and he happened to have made this one particular tasteless statement in front of a magazine reporter. 

According to FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal, Guillen told Time magazine, "I love Fidel Castro," and then added, "I respect Fidel Castro…" for surviving "when a lot of people have wanted to kill him." 

Whether or not Guillen was joking is irrelevant because what he said was so tasteless, so hurtful and so offensive that it might have been enough to permanently alienate him from the city in which he now resides. 

After his remarks were released, Guillen said in a team-issued statement, "There is nothing to respect about Fidel Castro. He is a brutal dictator who caused unthinkable pain for more than 50 years."

Guillen is clearly one of those people who says things without thinking and only afterward realizes the implications of his words. He's been in trouble for this very reason before—he's made jokes about Michael Jackson's death way too soon after the fact; he's also facetiously accused his players of being hungover when they claim they have migraines. 

But this isn't something to joke about. He said something positive about a dictator who threatened to ruin the lives of thousands of people who now call Miami home. There is no way that is ever going to fly. 

Former major leaguer Mike Lowell, who played on a Miami team that Guillen once coached, put it all in perspective. Both of Lowell's parents are Cuban and were forced to leave the country because of Fidel Castro. His father-in-law served as a political prisoner in a Cuban jail for 15 years. For obvious reasons, Lowell didn't take Guillen's comments lightly. 

In an interview with WEEI.com's Rob Bradford, Lowell said: 

"

So my father-in-law walks in and there's just sadness in his eyes. He said, "You see what the manager of the Marlins said?" He's deeply offended and hurt…The problem is that there are so many successful, influential Cuban-Americans who have made Miami their home, [and] from a PR standpoint there is nothing Ozzie could have said that could have been worse. He could have almost offended any race, any background or anything and it could not have been worse, for this community. 

"

Ozzie Guillen has said plenty of stupid things before, but this time, he just took it too far. He didn't offend his own players, the people he spends every day with, the people who understand his sense of humor. He offended all of the people who live among him, whose families have been ravaged by a dictator he said he "loves." 

Guillen may have been joking, but it's irrelevant. There are some things you're not allowed to joke about—not in Miami, not anywhere—and the Marlins did the right thing by making it clear that such commentary will not be tolerated.

If Guillen doesn't understand that, he doesn't deserve to do that job in that city.