Free Republic

A former professional baseball player teared up on the Fourth of July, passionately describing what his U.S. citizenship means to him. “It’s special,” said retired Major League Baseball All-Star Ozzie Guillen during an interview on Pre Game Live with host Chuck Garfien. “People, they don’t know how hard that is. How many people die … How many people want to be American. It's [an] honor for me,” the teary-eyed Guillen continued. As the retired star was speaking, a video of him becoming a citizen in 2006 played in the background. Garfien pointed out how emotional his guest had become from...

PHILADELPHIA -- Miami Marlins manger Ozzie Guillen will apologize again for telling a magazine he loves Fidel Castro. Guillen will return to Florida following Monday's game at Philadelphia and apologize Tuesday at Marlins Park. The Phillies and Marlins are off Tuesday before the series resumes Wednesday. Guillen had told Time magazine he loves the Cuban leader and respects him for staying in power so long. The manager said before Monday's game he's had sleepless nights because of his comments and wants to make amends. "I'm going to make everything clear what's going on," he said. "People can see me and...

It didn’t take long for Ozzie Guillen’s mouth to get him in trouble this season. The Miami Marlins manager apologized on Saturday for telling a magazine that he loves Fidel Castro, a comment that prompted to team to issue a statement denouncing the Cuban dictator. Guillen told Time magazine that he loves Castro and respects him for staying in power so long. When Guillen read his comments Friday, he said he felt sick because he knew how people would react. Guillen called the team’s beat writers for a closed-door meeting before a game against the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night...

After the Chicago White Sox were eliminated from participating in post season play, many fans were asking "why?" Why did the team with the most talent in the game play mediocre baseball for the second half of the season? How did a team that was 27 games over the .500 mark in July reverse course so quickly and end up being one of the greatest disappointments in baseball history? Who was responsible for this monumental collapse of a team that was supposed to repeat as World Series Champions? I think I have the answer to these questions, but it has...

In his new book White Guilt, Shelby Steele describes listening to early reports on his car radio about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and feeling certain that the president was finished. He reflects that, when he was a boy, if President Eisenhower had done something like this, he would have had to resign immediately. He remembers also that Eisenhower was rumored to use a racial epithet to refer to blacks when he played golf, but doing so (if in fact Eisenhower had) was not seen as a major sin then. Yet if Clinton had been caught out using a racial epithet in...

CHICAGO, June 30 (UPI) -- Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen, fined for using a gay slur against a columnist, says he'll spend an off-day at the Gay Games on July 17. He also plans to attend sensitivity training sessions soon, the Chicago Sun- Times reported. Guillen said he had already planned to attend the Gay Games, and his visit is not related to the trouble he got into with Major League Baseball for calling Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti a "fag" during a locker room interview. Guillen has apologized.

I was amazed. On Friday, I released a column defending Ozzie Guillen, titled, "Sox Manager fined, must attend sensitivity training: Someone has to come to Ozzie Guillen's defense--I guess I'll take that job." [To read column, go to www.rffm.org and click on above title] What amazed me was the deafening silence I heard after writing the piece that included some graphic descriptions of what homosexuals do. Now, I am not so big-headed to think the world should stop turning because I wrote a column, but I usually receive a fair amount of feedback--good, bad or indifferent--regarding the subjects I write...