Rich Waltz, you rule!

Lost amid the arrival of of the The Three-Headed LeBronster into the best city in the world, are curious comments from Marlins interim (deservedly so) manager Edwin Rodriguez.

After last night’s game Edwin told the media:

“We need to get more offense, mainly from Hanley, in the middle of the order. We need more offense from Hanley. Danny Uggla has been swinging the the bat very well. The bottom half of the lineup has been swinging the bat very well, so we need to have more offense from the top part of the lineup.”

Well, um, Hanley’s sort of the best player on the team. Not just the best player historically on this team, or the best player most years, but quite literally Hanley has been the most productive Florida Marlin this year.

He leads the team in on-base percentage (.372), OPS (.855), hits (92), OPS+ (126), and even the superficial RBI (53).

It would be nice though if Jorge Cantu and Chris Coghlan got a hit here or there. But yeah, it’s all Hanley’s fault!

The Miami HEAT announced today that they will host the HEAT Summer of 2010 Welcome Event to celebrate Dwyane Wade’s return to the team, and to introduce its newest acquisitions, Chris Bosh and LeBron James, to the South Florida community. The celebration is scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. tonight at the AmericanAirlines Arena.

HEAT fans that are unable to attend the event won’t miss a minute as FOX Sports Florida will provide exclusive live TV coverage of the entire celebration and press conference, presented by Papa John’s, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET and stream it live on FOXSportsFlorida.com. The program will also replay on Sun Sports Friday night at approximately 10:30 p.m.

Where you at, Hialeah! Bang those pots and pans, Miami!!!

The second reason? Bobby Valentine’s camp came back to the table and asked the Marlins for even more money than initially thought which angered owner Jeffrey Loria. The interest faded on both sides after the Fredi firing, the Marlins not wanting to pay Valentine extra money, and Valentine not wanting to commit to a team with a bottom barrel payroll next season.

There’s another sidenote to this story and why Bobby Valentine is staying in Bristol: Ozzie Guillen.

Yup.

Sources tell us that the the Marlins are infatuated with Guillen and that Ozzie has always been choice numero uno for Jeffrey Loria and David Samson. The sources also told us that it is common knowledge in baseball that even though Guillen is inked through 2012, that there is “no chance” he’s returning for next season.

It’s also common knowledge that former manager Fredi Gonzalez would manage the Atlanta Braves next year. Let’s run a theory by you..

Ozzie Guillen wants the Marlins job and the Marlins want him to have the job, and so, as Ozzie watches the Bobby Valentine situation disintegrate from afar, Ozzie and his people let the Marlins know that if they’re patient, and can wait until next year when Ozzie will no longer be in Chicago, he would love to have the Marlins job.

And the Marlins, disenchanted with Valentine as it is, and with a new opportunity to perhaps secure their first choice, hand the job off for the rest of this season to Edwin Rodriguez.

The Marlins wouldn’t really fire Fredi Gonzalez, tell everyone that they expect to contend and have underachieved, talk to Bobby Valentine, a respected name if nothing else, and then settle on giving the job to the least known commodity available to them.

Unless…

Ozzie Guillen came calling.

(6/30 Update: Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald got a hold of Bo Porter, one of the candidates for the job on a permanent basis:

“The conversation did lead to that,” Porter said, adding that the Marlins wanted to know if he would be agreeable to managing for the rest of this season only. “They wanted to know, if that was the case, what is your thought process? My thought process is I would want this year and next year, at the very least, to have an opportunity to go through spring training and implement my standards.”

There’s a reason why they only offered him the job for the rest of this season and not on a permanent basis…Ozzie.)

Stan Van Gundy was on with Dan Le Batard and Stugotz (the highest rated show in Miami for yet another ratings book!) earlier today to talk about his friend Fredi Gonzalez being fired. You can download and listen to the interview here. In any case, here are some choice quotes from Stan about the firing:

Dan: You’re a huge marlins fan an-

Yesterday, former NBA referee, Tim Donaghy was on with Dan Le Batard (listen to the interview here) and was asked about the Heat’s 2006 NBA Title:

What about this though?

Fredi Gonzalez has said that Hanley will be benched until he apologizes to the team. Reporters asked Hanley if he would apologize and he defiantly shot back “for what?”

What if Hanley simply refuses to apologize? He didn’t sound any kind of remorseful today, and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. How long can the Marlins keep the unapologetic superstar on the bench? Two games? A week?

And if Hanley doesn’t apologize, and Fredi is forced to re-insert him into the lineup, what happens to Fredi? Should be an interesting few weeks..

Did you give less than 100 percent effort?

Ramirez: I don’t know. It looked like it. The example starts with me. If you don’t hustle, hopefully, he does it with everybody. That’s OK. He doesn’t understand that. He never played in the big leagues. That’s OK. That’s fine. That’s an example and it starts with me and let’s see how far it can go.

Did the foul ball off your shin affect your running?

Ramirez: A little bit. Yeah. I had a little bit of tightness.

Did you think you could keep playing?

Ramirez: For him, I don’t think so.

How much pain were you in?

Ramirez: A lot. I was trying to stay in the game. I wasn’t trying to get out of the game.

What was reaction when he said he was taking you out of the game?

Ramirez: I just said ‘I’m going to go home. I just wanted to go home. It’s brutal. It’s fine. It’s OK.

Did you want to stay in the game?

Ramirez: Yeah. I could’ve. But I think I would have been in a little bit of pain. It’s his team. He do whatever the he [f---ing] wants. There’s nothing I could do about it.

Could your bat help the team?

Ramirez: Not right now. I think that’s why I got kicked out of the game.

Are you angry?

Ramirez: It’s brutal like I said. I’m just going to play the game and he’s just going to have to leave me alone.

Did you lose respect for Gonzalez?

Ramirez: A little bit. We got 24 more guys out there, hopefully they can do the same things I do. That are wearing the Marlins uniform. There’s nothing I can say.

Are you going to apologize to your team for dogging it?

Ramirez: For what? Do what? We have a lot of people dogging it after ground balls. They never pull guys.

Are you going to talk to Fredi today?

Ramirez: I don’t think so and I won’t. I don’t know when I’m going to be back on the field.

Do you feel you’re healthy enough to play?

Ramirez: No [mentally and physically].

Have you ever been this angry?

Ramirez: It’s happened a couple times, but it’s happened underneath the table. So, I know why I’m angry.

You aren’t the first All-Star shortstop to get benched…

Ramirez: It can happen to anybody. 162 games.

Do you want to play for Fredi?

Ramirez: It’s over. I’m done. No more [questions].

Was it the shin or ankle?

Ramirez: The shin.

Do you hold yourself accountable for not running?

Ramirez: That was as hard as I could go right there. I wasn’t trying like I gave up. That was the hardest I could go after the ball.

Did you see the replay?

Ramirez: No. Everybody has a different mind. I can’t control what you think about that. I can only control what I do on the field, off the field. I know some people are going to think I gave up or was a little bit hurt. It’s going to be fine.

Do you respect Fredi?

Ramirez: I respect everybody. But I don’t know if I get the same respect back. That’s why sometimes you sit down and think about it. Why respect someone who isn’t going to respect you back?

How much did it hurt you to hear some of the things he said?

Ramirez: I haven’t heard anything, but I had a couple people who told me. I don’t want to hear what he said. That’s fine. I just want to sit down because I’m so mad right now, I don’t want to do something stupid. Hopefully, I can talk to my kids so they can keep me down and forget this and go forward.

How many games do you think you’ll miss?

Ramirez: I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him. I just got here. Let’s see what they bring on the table.

Do you want to see your name in the lineup?

Ramirez: Everyday.

After the jump read Fredi’s reaction to Hanley’s comments:

Is his injury why he isn’t in the lineup?

No. I think he’s fine. I’m sure he’s a little bruised up or banged up. But he’s not in the lineup.

And the reason for that is…

I think he needs to take care of some problems. I think he needs to take care of the situation and when he handles that the right way, we’ll be fine. It’s one of those things that could be good. It could be good.

Will he pinch hit?

I don’t know.

What do you think he needs to do?

I think he needs to talk to his teammates a little bit. You know what I mean? I think whatever feelings he has with me or not has with me, it’s fine and dandy. We don’t need to get along. But I think he needs to get along with the 24 other guys in his team and when that happens, we’ll run him back in there. I think if he sets his ego aside, this could be good.

Does he need to apologize to his teammates?

I think he needs to talk to his teammates.

Did you speak with him?

I’ve spoken to him, yes. Within the last 10 minutes.

Is he suspended?

No.

How was he in the discussion? He was pretty angry.

OK.

Did he seem like he was going to heed your advice?

Not sure.

We asked him if he was going to and his first words were ‘For what?’

Well, what are we going to do then?

You don’t want this distraction do you?

If it’s handled the right way I think it could be good. If not, it could be a distraction. It could grow into some ugly stuff. Let’s wait and see what happens. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill just yet.

Handled by him?

I think so. There’s not a date or an hour or the third inning of today’s game. We’ll wait and kind of let this thing work itself out a little bit. I think sometimes when the ego gets in the way and the ego kind of deflates a little bit and you see the forest and the trees, I think it would be good.

He said some said unflattering things about you not playing in the majors…

He’s right. But I know how to play the game. I played six years in the minor leagues and I know what it takes to play this game and I know the effort it takes to play this game and I know it’s hard to play this game. Believe me, I know it’s hard. That’s it.

He said ‘It’s your team, you can do whatever the f— you want.’

It’s our team. I’m just a guy who makes the lineup. It’s our team.

How disappointed are you with his comments?

I’m not disappointed. Sometimes it takes a little time. But that’s what you want to hear. You want this to turn around and be a positive. And that’s all it takes. It takes a little bit of responsibility and we could take off. It’s not the first time it’s been done in the major leagues, not the first time I’ve done this in the major leagues. We’ll see how this develops. My job as the manager — as the f—ing manager is to make sure 25 guys play together and the effort is there. I can’t control everybody going 4 for 4. But you can control the effort.

In the bottom half of the first inning Hanley Ramirez fouled a ball off his ankle and was visibly hurt, taking two to three minutes wincing in pain, attempting to let the injury subside. Later in the at-bat Hanley grounded into a double play and didn’t run out the ball the way he normally would, presumably because his leg hurt.

The following inning there was a play where Hanley was going after a fly ball, and he kicked the ball deep into the outfield, forcing Ramirez to give it chase. Hanley jogged after the ball and multiple runs scored because of it. Marlins dopey TV analyst Tommy Hutton angrily responded “If he wants to take the night off, get him out of the game now.” Hutton also lamented that Hanley lacked hustle, and that he needed to be pulled from the game immediately.

Let’s start here: If Chris Coghlan committed the same offense, Hutton would bemoan Coghlan’s gamemanship and ability to play through pain, gutting out a tough injury for the team.

There may be a reason for that: Coghlan’s skin color is much lighter than Hanley. Go ahead and name me the white guy who consistently gets hit with ‘lack of hustle’ by fans and announcers the way the guys with darker skin do? It’s not a coincidence that B.J Upton, Bobby Abreau, Jimmy Rollins, Matt Kemp, and Gary Sheffield are forever getting hit with “lack of hustle” and “loafing” on plays. Go read all those links attached to all those players’ names. They’ve all been hit with it, they all have one thing in common: dark skin.

The reason?

No clue. I don’t have a definitive answer for you, sorry. I don’t think MLB is racist and I don’t think that the white guys are always hustling. I think it comes from a deeper, convoluted place. A place that Malcon Gladwell talked about in his exceptional book, Blink. That when you walk down a street and see a black homeless man, you feel threatened, and when you see a white homeless man, you no longer feel threatened.

There’s something about seeing these players that triggers analysts, particularly the white ones, which makes them become unhinged in their desire to bench and cut the B.J Upton’s and Elijah Dukes’ of the world. I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps they feel that the black athlete should be faster and the few times where it appears to the naked eye that the hustle isn’t there, it angers them, whereas with the white athlete an analyst doesn’t get the same sort of angry.

Just for argument’s sake, let’s say Hanley gets placed on the DL following the game tonight with a leg injury. Does that change the discussion in any meaningful way? Is it now OK for Hanley to ‘loaf’ after the ball given that his leg is injured? What if Hanley knew his leg was hurt and didn’t push it to save his ankle. Let’s say he DID push it, and further injured it, what’s the reaction then?

All I’m asking is to apply common sense to the matter. Hanley Ramirez’s ankle probably hurts worse right now than any pain you’ve ever felt. The fact that he didn’t run out his double play ground out, and subsequently jogged on a kicked fly ball has everything to do with that pain and little to do with his desire, or lack thereof.