Guillen’s ‘stupid’ statement hits home for DeCubas

When Ozzie Guillen's diarrhea of the mouth finally caught up to him the other day, when he said he loved Fidel Castro -- and that's exactly the way it was interpreted, though interpreting Ozzie is like interpreting abstract art or Keith Richards -- the plan was to find a local Cuban, preferably with ties to baseball, for reaction.

Alas, Adeiny Hechavarria, the 51s' slick-fielding shortstop who, like Guillen, makes his home in Miami, wasn't talking. Hechavarria was born in Santiago de Cuba, the site of a naval battle in the Spanish-American War during which an American fleet surrounded Spanish ships and destroyed them when they tried to escape. Perhaps this is what gave Castro the idea.

Hechavarria's mother and brother are still back there, so he politely refused an interview request through an interpreter and a team official.

By not talking, Hechavarria spoke volumes. The inference is that Castro's iron fist still packs a wallop in communist Cuba, and those who dare stand up to it still fear reprisal, like those Spanish ships in 1898.

So I called the only other Cuban I know with baseball ties, Luis DeCubas, who also lives in Miami and is a professional boxing promoter.

In 2009 before a card at Planet Hollywood, DeCubas introduced me to a fighter from Cuba named Guillermo Rigondeaux, also of Santiago de Cuba, and said he would become champion. That's what all boxing promoters say when there are tickets to be sold.

But Rigondeaux did indeed become a champion by winning the WBA super bantamweight title with a split decision over Ricardo Cordoba on the Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito undercard at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in front of 70,000 spectators.

So from now on, I am taking Luis DeCubas at his word.

He was in Chicago promoting another fight when I left a message and said I wanted to talk about Ozzie Guillen and Fidel Castro. And he called right back and seemed eager to talk, because unlike Adeiny Hechavarria, he doesn't have family members back home still dreaming of a better life.

Luis DeCubas was 9 years old in 1966 when he and his family arrived at the airport in Minneapolis-St. Paul via the Freedom Flights, which between 1965 and 1971 brought 245,845 Cubans seeking political asylum and a better life to the United States. Today, most Cuban exiles arrive on boats that make the S.S. Minnow look like a sultan's yacht. That was how Hechavarria defected.

It was a little less stressful for Luis DeCubas, mostly because of baseball. His grandfather, Carlos Zarza, had been a catcher in the Washington Senators organization and was once batterymate for Cuban countryman Dolph Luque, who won 27 games for the Reds in 1923.

Zarza knew all of the Cuban ballplayers, so when Luis DeCubas and his family touched down in Minnesota, they were greeted by Zoilo Versalles, the 1965 American League Most Valuable Player, from Vedado, Cuba. They also were greeted by 27 inches of snow.

DeCubas said Guillen's take on Castro was "just plain stupid."

"My family left everything behind and my father had to start all over again when he was 50 years old," DeCubas said of his father, also named Luis, a pediatrician who practiced at the West Side Clinic in St. Paul until he was 90.

"Thank God we were lucky to come to this great country. To make a statement like that offends a lot of people who have suffered under Castro. People over there are starving, and (when they speak out), they are put in front of firing squads and stuff.

"What (Guillen) said was just stupid, stupid, stupid."

But the insensitivity of the Miami manager will not stop DeCubas from attending Marlins games in that beautiful new ballpark in Little Havana. The guy apologized, DeCubas said, and seemed sincere about it.  

Besides, when the Orioles played an exhibition game in Havana in 1999, didn't Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, sit in Castro's box and pose for photos? Isn't there just a bit of hypocrisy in all of this?

When the Marlins suspended Guillen for five games -- he will be back on the field tonight when Miami opens a series against the Cubs -- Selig issued a statement supporting that decision.

He may have been puffing on a full-bodied Siglio III Corona Gorda Cohiba cigar, or perhaps a sublime double robusto from the Edicion Limitada line, when the statement went out.  

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.