Players mostly mum on Ozzie Guillen

If there was a lesson learned within baseball as a result of the five-game suspension imposed on Miami manager Ozzie Guillen by Marlins management for recent comments supporting Cuban leader Fidel Castro, it is that mixing sports and politics can be costly.

Reaction to Guillen's suspension for comments published by Time magazine was muted at Citi Field, where the Mets faced Washington Tuesday night.

Nationals pitcher Edwin Jackson, who once played for Guillen, was typical. "Ozzie is Ozzie," Jackson said. "I'm not sure of all the rules of politics. I have no view on anything."

The Nationals' roster includes several Venezuelans, some of whom expressed sympathy for their countryman Guillen while trying not to add fuel to the fire. Speaking through an interpreter, relief pitcher Henry Rodriguez wondered why Guillen would be punished for expressing a political opinion.

"He can think about whatever he likes or not," Rodriguez said. " . . . The suspension is kind of weird because it's political, not baseball."

Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos said Guillen is much admired in Venezuela. "He don't like to be quiet," Ramos said. "If somebody has done something bad, he tells everybody . . . Everybody is talking about him now. I don't know what they say, but I don't want to say anything bad about him."

With Erik Boland