If life were the movies, this is the point when new Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen would be summoned to Dean Wormer’s office in Animal House.
“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son,” Dean Wormer famously chided a floundering frat pledge named Flounder.
Perhaps Marlins president David Samson, a huge movie buff, should play the clip for his new skipper. And then read Guillen — a 48-year-old former big-leaguer who sometimes seems like a stunted adolescent — the riot act about being on double-secret probation.
Guillen telling a reporter that he drinks every night on the road? Well, that’s just Ozzie being Ozzie. Guillen telling Time magazine that he loves Fidel Castro, then amending his remarks to say he “respects” the Cuban dictator for surviving so long in the face of so many people trying to pick him off? That’s just plain stupid.
I suppose Guillen could have said something worse to start his Miami tenure. No, strike that.
There’s nothing dumber he could have said, considering the team’s new Little Havana location and Latino-friendly rebranding efforts.
The Marlins aren’t back home until Friday, and you get the feeling this story is going to keep percolating. After a weekend apologizing, explaining and spinning, Guillen said Monday that he would fly back to Miami on Tuesday to hold an open session at Marlins Park to express regret and answer questions.
Should he resign, be suspended or fired by the team or get a second chance?
In today’s world, there’s a difference between what should happen and what will happen. Of course, people are free to have opinions in this country, but leaders of organizations have to be sensitive to the business and cultural realities of their surroundings.
Guillen, a Venezuelan who won a World Series managing the Chicago White Sox and who has kept a home in South Florida for years, should know better.
What Guillen said was spectacularly insensitive, and it has to make everyone in the organization wonder if he is fit to be the public face of this franchise.
It also has to make you wonder what he might do for an encore. Show up for a Trayvon Martin Million Hoodie March wearing a KKK hood? Go to a Boca Raton deli for Holocaust Remembrance day next week and say that Hitler was misunderstood?
Like everything in modern-age sports, Guillen’s fate probably will boil down to the almighty dollar.
If there’s enough local fan outrage to fuel boycotts and hurt attendance and merchandise/concession sales at that pretty new playpen, owner Jeff Loria and Samson might have no choice but to cut Guillen loose.
If the community shrugs its collective shoulders and people keep buying boletos (tickets) and $12 cubano sandwiches at the ballpark, then Guillen will survive. At least until the next time he inserts his foot in his mouth.
What do you think should happen?
