Boisterous Ozzie Guillen Making Sense on Asian-Latino Comments

With just a few big league seasons under his belt as Texas Rangers' outfielder in the late '80s, Ruben Sierra was an All-Star, an emerging superstar, a soon-to-be millionaire, and unhappy. He felt alone in North Texas as a young man from Puerto Rico. He didn't speak much English, and few around him spoke his native Spanish.

"If you had asked Ruben earlier in his career whether he wanted to stay with the Rangers," Sierra's agent then, Chuck Berry, later told Texas Monthly, "he may have said 'no.' "

That changed when the Rangers hired a longtime and well-known baseball journalist from Puerto Rico named Luis Mayoral, who had been a confidant of Roberto Clemente, as a liaison for its growing Latin American contingent.

"When I came here was 18 years ago, [then Rangers general manager] Tom Grieve had the right perspective in mind," Mayoral told me by phone Tuesday from his suburban Dallas home. "I helped the Pudges [Rodriguez] and the Juans [Gonzalez] of the world. That had been my mission, self-imposed, 20 years before that.


"So when Ozzie [Guillen] came out with his comments, I believe he's on the right track. He understands like I do that a lot of talent from Latin America is wasted because historically MLB has struck out about the transition that must be taken [for Latin American ballplayers] to America."

"They take advantage of us," the White Sox Venezuelan-born manager Guillen charged Sunday of baseball, when it comes to Latino players. He said there was a lack of interpreters for them as well as poor information about performance-enhancing drugs. "We bring a Japanese player and they are very good and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid ... go to the minor leagues, good luck. Good luck. And it's always going to be like that. It's never going to change. But that's the way it is."

The White Sox's front office issued a dissenting argument. Guillen, as he always is, was dismissed as a loose cannon.

"This is an issue Ozzie Guillen obviously feels very passionately about," the statement read. "Ozzie certainly has his own experiences as a player, coach and manager, and is entitled to his own opinions, but the Chicago White Sox believe his views are incorrect."

After being signed by the Dodgers in 1995, Hideo Nomo set the precedence for the extra benefits that Asian players are afforded today

But a fellow I know who is director of player operations for a major league team corroborated Guillen's observation. He said most Asian players are extended everything from flights for their families to housing allowances to, of course, translators when they come to the states. The precedent, he said, was established by pitcher Hideo Nomo. Ever since, agents for Japanese players have demanded the extra benefits. Latin players, basically bought in bulk in Latin American baseball academies, haven't been so fortunate.

"MLB has stripped Japanese baseball of all the superstars," said Mayoral, who is out of the major leagues now but still writing and doing radio shows back to Puerto Rico. "There are other interests involved between Major League Baseball and Japan via rights to do televised games regularly to Japan and the marketing that is done for MLB in Japan -- the fans buy virtually anything. It's another relationship where the least Major League Baseball can do is treat the players coming in from Japan like kings ... something that's not done with Latinos."

"The main problem is that the majority of Hispanics, without generalizing, do not have the same backgrounds as players from the United States of America or Japan. ... [In Japan], they have certain advantages that even kids in Puerto Rico ... and the Dominican and Venezuela and Panama and elsewhere don't have."
--Luis Mayoral There is no question Guillen has uttered some things in the past he should regret. But what he said this week was not one of them. Mayoral assured as much and his experience as a Latin America liaison in two stints in the big leagues -- he followed Gonzalez to Detroit -- stood as evidence.

"That is why I identify completely with Ozzie," Mayoral said. "The main problem is that the majority of Hispanics, without generalizing, do not have the same backgrounds as players from the United States of America or Japan. You travel to Japan, as I have, and you see that Japan is another culture in itself. They have certain advantages that even kids in Puerto Rico, which is a [commonwealth] of the U.S. and the Dominican and Venezuela and Panama and elsewhere don't have."

Latin American players, who make up almost 30 percent of the league now, certainly don't face as much discomfort now as Sierra did a generation ago. Most teams today have Latin America departments and liaisons, though not necessarily as hands-on and as knowledgeable as Mayoral.

But as Guillen and Mayoral pointed out, players from their backgrounds still suffer early in their careers. Some fight to survive it.

My front office friend, who asked not to be identified, said: "It can be tough for the Latin player, but it is the responsibility of the organization to put programs in place to help them assimilate to our culture and language. The word spreads if it is known an organization doesn't take care of their players."

And with baseball entrenched with spring training camps and a major rookie league in Arizona -- the state that just passed what most Latinos, including a growing chorus of Latin major leaguers, believe is an anti-Latino immigration law -- things for Latin ballplayers just got a little more uncomfortable.

"That is why it is a must to have that transition [help]," Mayoral said. "The obstacles I encountered ... in baseball in key positions within the teams, and in Major League Baseball, [showed executives] had not understood the need to help these guys in the transition. All they worry about is having them come up and hit homers and then be ready out there to do an interview, or have them behave the way a kid from Oklahoma City behaves, when it is a completely different culture for the Latinos here in the U.S. of A.

"So when the people in the main offices of the major league teams, and when certain people in the players' union and people in the commissioner's office don't understand there is a genuine need for that, the problem will still be there. That's where Ozzie is coming from."

Mayoral worked quickly with Sierra upon arriving at the Rangers' headquarters for the 1992 season, when the Rangers were considering what size contract it would take to make Sierra happy in Texas. They couldn't find it and traded Sierra to Oakland for Jose Canseco.

"Had I gotten here a year sooner, I could've saved Ruben," Mayoral said.

There are still Latin players who need the lifeline Mayoral tossed out for so long.