I am not going to write much about the Mariners 1-0 loss tonight to the Rangers except to say Blake

Beavan pitched as good as we can expect from him tonight which is a good thing.Unfortuanetly Neftali Feliz in his first shot as a starter was a little better holding the Mariners to just four hits. Its still possible we could get a split out of this series but the odds are tilting against us.

Actually I was more captivated today by all the buzz about Ozzie Guillen the notorious loudmouth and his latest reference to Fidel Castro in Cuba that has gotten him in Hot water including a five-day suspension from his bosses down in Miami who in turn are being pressured by the powerful Cuban ex-Pat community that has always had a stranglehold on the politics in Dade County where the new stadium is located down in Florida.

I have mixed emotions on this whole bizarre situation, on the one hand I know Fidel Castro has been heavy-handed over the years locking up political dissidents in Cuba who didn’t follow the party line.On the other hand being a progressive and someone who grew-up during the Cold War, which by the way has been over for 20 years I know that the Cuban people have also made major gains in the areas of medical care and education since Castro and his comrades overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista in 1959.

In 1934 Fulgencio Batista took over the Cuban government in what became known as “The Revolt of the Sergeants.” For the next twenty-five years he ruled Cuba with an iron fist, and the full blessing and endorsement of the United States government, who feared a social and economic revolution and saw him as a stabilizing force with respect for American interests.

Batista established lasting relationships with organized crime, and under his guardianship Havana became known as “the Latin Las Vegas.” Meyer Lansky and other prominent gangsters were heavily invested in Havana, and politicians from Batista on down took their cut.

Through Lansky, the mafia knew they had a friend in Cuba. A summit at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, with mobsters such as Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Moe Dalitz and others, confirmed Luciano’s authority over the U.S. mob, and coincided with Frank Sinatra’s 1946 singing debut in Havana. It was here that Lansky gave permission to kill Bugsy Siegel.

Many of Batista’s enemies faced the same fate as the ambitious Siegel. Nobody seemed to mention the many brutal human rights abuses that were a regular feature of Batista’s private police force. Nobody, that is, except the many in Cuba who opposed the U.S.-friendly dictator which ended in 1959 when Fidel Castro led a revolution to oust Batista and created a Socialist state which is amongst the last in the world still standing.

The powerful and wealthy elites from Cuba who fled to Miami after the revolution have never forgotten this era though there is rarely any discussion about the previous dictator Batista and his shenanigans. Ozzie apparently made some remark about how he respected Castro for surviving all these years, which whether he meant it or not is a huge no-no down in Miami.

As it stands now Ozzie has made a public apology and is serving out his five-game suspension which he has deserved many other times for saying dumb things but never anything as political as this. One has to wonder in an era where Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer are seen as credible public figures why a manager of a MLB team can’t say anything about politics. Does the First Amendment apply to Ozzie Guillen or only if he is calling other players and managers foul names but not anything political? I realize this is a touchy topic but it seems a little more interesting than Blake Beavan’s approach to pitching.Go M’s http://jeffsmariners.com