Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is more outspoken as a manager than he ever was as a player. The skipper opened his mouth again yesterday, courting controversy with an incendiary claim against Major League Baseball, describing how the organization is more accommodating for minorities who aren’t Latino, specifically Japanese professional baseball players who sign with MLB clubs.
”It’s very bad. I say, why do we have Japanese interpreters and we don’t have a Spanish one. I always say that,” Guillen said before the Sox played Oakland at U.S. Cellular Field. ”Why do they have that privilege and we don’t? Don’t take this wrong, but they take advantage of us. We bring a Japanese player, and they are very good, and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid … [and send him to] the minor leagues. ‘Good luck.’ And it’s always going to be like that. It’s never going to change. But that’s the way it is.”
Part of me wants to dismiss this, because it’s Ozzie Guillen and he’s prone to talking out of his behind. That and the fact that every professional baseball team at every level is chock full of players who speak Spanish as a first language, and most teams don’t have any Japanese players. However, that support system and the special allowances made isn’t so much based on race, but age and skill. Japanese players don’t sign when they’re 16, like Guillen did and like a lot of poor Latinos do; Japanese ballplayers come to the Major Leagues as millionaires and proven pros.
Tags: Major League Baseball, racism, Japanese versus Latin baseball players, Ozzie Guillen, Chicago White Sox, unusual discussions, racism in baseball, MLB, professional baseball
