Ozzie Guillen can only delay the inevitable

It's rare that a manager fires himself. Billy Martin was a master of self-demolition, and there are long-ago cases of managers too corrupt or temperamental to hold a job. Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Miami Marlins, fired himself in a magazine article. Some months may pass before the actual deed, perhaps even a year or two, but Guillen has lost the trust of his most valued fan base: Miami's Cuban exile community. Theirs is a rage that will not die - not after what Guillen said about Fidel Castro. It's remarkable to think that Guillen, who has lived in Miami for 12 years, would say even one word about Castro, unless it was preceded by an expletive. In the words of Dan Le Batard, the Miami Herald columnist of Cuban heritage, "That name is the equivalent of Hitler in South Florida." And yet, Guillen spoke of his admiration for Castro, as a survivor, in a Time magazine interview - and it wasn't the first time. In 2008, while managing the Chicago White Sox, Guillen said of Castro in a Men's Journal piece, "I don't admire his philosophy. I admire him." Guillen is known to be reckless and crazy in his public comments, but that's beyond crazy. That's like setting fire to your neighborhood and trying to pretend it's OK. Usually, in times of public protest, the younger voices ring loudest. Rebellious in the face of injustice, they're out to change the world. In time, Guillen may be forgiven by Miami's youthful generations of Cuban Americans, who have only second-hand knowledge of the Castro regime. The older voices will not be silenced. They're the ones who risked their lives trying to escape, who had friends and relatives persecuted or killed, who view Fidel Castro as the very personification of evil and will never rationalize any words of praise. So as Guillen walks the streets of Miami, and returns to the Marlins' ballpark in Little Havana on Tuesday night after serving a five-game suspension, he will find himself suffocated by distrust. He has to win now, and win big, but success will be but a temporary cure. There is no surviving the forces of doubt.