Puerto Rico Hates Ozzie Guillen

I don't understand why people are making such a big deal of Ozzie Guillen telling Joe Morgan that he thought Ivan Rodriguez and Roberto Alomar were the two best players to come out of Puerto Rico, and not Roberto Clemente, but for some reason it really seemed to strike a chord with a lot of different people. The story was covered all over the blogosphere, including here at FanHouse, and treated as though it was of some great importance.

It's not, it's just the opinion of one man. Sure, the man happens to be everybody's favorite insane Venezuelan, but it's still only an opinon. I mean, don't you get into arguments with your friends all the time about certain baseball players being better than others? Isn't that one of the great draws of baseball?

It seems I'm wrong, though, because most of Puerto Rico hates Guillen right now.

Guillen made that statement even though he has been a lifelong collector of Clemente memorabilia and gave his son Oney the middle name of Roberto, after Clemente.

''If Clemente had to squat behind that plate like Pudge does every day, he would have been out of the game in two years,'' Guillen said Monday. ''People just want to be politically correct because of the way Clemente's life ended [in a plane crash].''

According to the AP, Clemente's son, Luis Roberto Clemente, learned of Guillen's comments and said: ''I am very certain and very at ease about what my father has accomplished. That is history that will never change.''

The reaction wasn't all negative for Guillen. Puerto Rican sports historian Jorge Colon said Guillen had a right to express his opinion.

''What happens is that Clemente is the most admired and loved, and we tend to be overprotective,'' Colon said. ''But there is nothing wrong in saying that other players have surpassed him.''

Thank you, Jorge Colon.

I never got to see Roberto Clemente play baseball because he died before I was born, but I have read his biography (Clemente by David Maraniss. I highly recommend it.) and think he was a great man. Still, the book can't tell me who the better player was so there's no way I can help "solve" this debate.

What I do know is that Ivan Rodriguez and Roberto Alomar have/had fantastic Hall of Fame careers under their belts, and it's really not that big of a stretch to say they may be better than Clemente. Either way, why is it such an insult to compare one Hall of Famer to two eventual Hall of Famers? If Ozzie had said that his bench coach Joey Cora was the best player to ever come out of Puerto Rico, then I'd understand the uproar.

The good people of Puerto Rico just need to get over it.