When They Meet,
What Should Citizen Ozzie Tell Dubya?
Robert Heuer     [Photo]

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén celebrated his 42nd birthday on Jan. 20 by becoming a U.S. citizen. The Venezuela native passed the test in a Chicago federal building, then told the media that now he can say what he wants and “you cannot kick me out of this country."

Fear of deportation isn’t something one would associate with Guillén. During a 21-year career as a major league player, coach and manager, he has exhibited a refreshing habit of speaking his mind without regard for consequences.

Let’s hope he lives up to that reputation when he and fellow members of the world champion White Sox visit the White House to meet President George Bush this month.

As videotape rolls, the trophy-toting White Sox skipper would be on point to talk about the meaning of his recent acquisition of a second passport.

Guillén says that he, his wife Ibis and 19-year-old son Oney became citizens to facilitate travel back and forth from South America. For years, the Guilléns, with homes in Caracas and Miami, grew tired of the hassle of going to the U.S. Embassy to renew their visas. (Their oldest son, Ozzie Jr., is already a citizen because he was born in the United States. Their third child, 14-year-old Ozney, becomes eligible for citizenship upon turning 18.)

Guillén is grateful that a baseball scout invited him north, and he seized the opportunity.

“Becoming a citizen is more important than winning the World Series because you only become a citizen once,” he says. “I’m super proud of becoming a citizen. It’s a difficult situation here with respect to immigration. A lot of people die trying to get into this country whether by water or across the border. Nobody has ever died trying to win the World Series.”

Guillén finds inspiration in a little-noticed aspect of the life of baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, who died at age 38 in the 1972 crash of a plane bound for Nicaragua with earthquake relief supplies. “What I most admire about Clemente was how he used his own rights as a citizen to speak out.”

In the 1960s, Clemente, a native of the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, elicited applause from an English-speaking crowd by declaring: “I hear people want to spit on the American flag. I wouldn’t trade this country for no one country.”

Clemente didn’t speak English perfectly, but he did speak it honestly. As a U.S. citizen, Clemente felt obligated to express his convictions even when unpopular.

Reaching the majors a half century ago at a time when few U.S. residents had ever seen a person who was both black and Spanish-speaking, Clemente faced constant condescension. His success on the field gave him a platform to demand that Latinos be treated with respect. He spoke out for the civil rights movement, the needs of the poor, even helped spearhead formation of the Major League Players Association.

Clemente’s exercise of his rights as a citizen inspired major leaguer Carlos Delgado to spend time and money protesting the U.S. Navy’s bomb exercises on the island of Vieques off the coast of his native Puerto Rico.

Several years ago, Delgado quietly began the practice of refusing to stand during baseball’s traditional seventh-inning stretch singing of "God Bless America." Word of this protest of U.S. actions in Iraq eventually became public.

"We have more people dead now, after the war, than during the war,” he told the Toronto Star in 2004. You've been looking for weapons of mass destruction. Where are they at? You've been looking for over a year. Can't find them. I don't support that. I don't support what they do. I think it's just stupid."

Being an athlete with political opinions didn’t much matter when Delgado toiled in relative obscurity for the Toronto Blue Jays and last season for the Florida Marlins. But last fall, the free agent took the plunge into the media fish bowl.

The New York Mets reportedly wanted their new hire to tone down his politics. Delgado complied. At a Nov. 28 news conference, where he waved his new uniform bearing the number of his outspoken hero, Delgado said, “Now I’m just employee number 21.”

The group Hispanics Across America advocates that baseball retire Clemente’s number as it has already done with Jackie Robinson’s number 42. A better way to honor Clemente would be to pressure the player’s union to demand that the Mets’ owners admit they were wrong to challenge Delgado’s act of conscience for trying to live up to the Clemente legacy.

“Delgado is free to express himself as he wishes,” A Mets spokesman now says. Dave Zirin, author of “What’s My Name, Fool?,” a new book about race, class and ideology in sports, was at the Nov. 28 news conference and contends the Mets’ organization took heat from New York papers and “is now artfully backtracking.”

Ozzie Guillén finds the Mets ownership’s initial edict insulting. “The Mets have a Hispanic general manager and a Hispanic assistant general manager. If it had been me, I’d have torn up the contract.”

Spoken like a true patriot. But don’t just tell me, Ozzie. In the media’s hot glare, ask George Bush if he supports Carlos Delgado’s right to protest the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

(Robert Heuer is an Evanston, Ill-based consultant and journalist. He can be reached at rjheuer@comcast.net)

© 2006 Hispanic Link News Service
02/05/06
END