The Marlins Punish Political Speech

[Commentary] 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 Time magazine that he “loved” and “respected” Fidel Castro, not because of Mr. 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.