José Guillén Is Right!
I was talking with a co-worker last week about the steroids issue in baseball. The conversation occured on the heels of Twins reliever Juan Rincon. The co-worker brought up a point about how the rules could be unfair to Latin players because of a language barrier. I said that the language barrier is no excuse. I don’t care what race or color the player is, I don’t care what his native language is. When it comes to the rules of the game and the league in which he is playing the player must learn the rules at all costs and be sure he has an accurate understanding of them. I was pretty much branded as a racist for this comment.
Then came Jose Guillen. Guillen is quoted in a report by the AP as follows:
I don’t buy that, that they didn’t know what they were doing. They knew what they were doing. There’s no excuse for them. We’re all grown enough men and we all know what we’re doing.
Guillen is also quoted as follows:
They say we need translators. I came to the States and spoke no English, but I took it upon myself to learn. This is an American game, not a Latin game. You need to learn to speak the language.
I have one thing to say to this co-worker: I told you so.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Guillen is right. I live in Puerto Rico and I know that language isn’t an issue when it came to steroids. Players know exactly what they are doing. They need to be men and just say what they did.