Chavez and Castro are closely linked. I won't say Chavez is as unpopular as Castro in Miami of course but he's definitely in the next tier. It wouldn't have surprised me if a moment of silence turned into a moment of booing and cursing. This was probably the best move from a practical perspective.

Not being from the area I didn't know he was anywhere near as unpopular in the area. If there was a danger of the fans showing 'ugly American' to the world then it probably was best not to do a moment of silence (I hate to imagine how ugly it would be if done for Castro whenever he finally goes). Still, keeping the flag at 1/2 mast wouldn't hurt anyone and should've been left that way for the day and probably should be at half mast for all games that Venezuela plays.

Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Jimmy Carter admired him. A lot. All you need to know.

Maybe the Marlins couldn't recognize him from those recent photographs. :-)

Hugo Chávez's presidency (1999-2013) was characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees.

After enacting a new constitution with ample human rights protections in 1999 – and surviving a short-lived coup d'état in 2002 – Chávez and his followers moved to concentrate power. They seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights.

By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda.

And BTW, how would you have felt about a similar moment of silence for Pinochet, given his human rights record?

I wonder [EDIT: meh, not really] what the Chavez apologistas would have said about a moment of silence or lowering of the flag at a public event for Pinochet out of respect "for the country, not the man."

I wonder [EDIT: meh, not really] what the Chavez apologistas would have said about a moment of silence or lowering of the flag at a public event for Pinochet out of respect "for the country, not the man."

The 89-year-old Pinochet found he had to fight a judicial rearguard action following the July 2004 revelations by a U.S. congressional committee that the former dictator had up to $8 million in personal funds stashed in secret accounts in the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C. The very fact of the accounts' existence appeared to finally cause Chilean conservatives-and even the head of the Chilean army-to distance themselves from Pinochet. His legal situation also worsened in August, when the Supreme Court ruled that Pinochet was not immune from prosecution for his role in mass murders carried out by Operation Condor, a secret framework for mutual cooperation against dissidents between six South American military dictatorships in the 1970s.

In June 2005, a court stripped Pinochet of his legal protections in a case involving more than $13 million in funds he and his family allegedly laundered out of the country. While Pinochet assumed "all responsibility" for the secret accounts, which by mid-2005 were revealed to total some $31 million, retired military figures called on Pinochet to take responsibility for human rights crimes for which dozens of his subordinates are currently imprisoned or facing prosecution.

this is a pretty weak "both sides do it." Chavez was a thug, but mass murder of political opponents is noticeably missing from that HRW snippit you posted

Chavez was the right wing's "Hitler of the Week" several times. Shame on you hippies for not lustily cheering his death and dancing in the streets. I think we know what side you're on,

Here's an excerpt from a page on Chile from Freedom House, one of the most scrupulously non-partisan political websites around. You're likely aware of this yourself, but just for the record:

That's chump change compared to Suha Arafat's money market account

(Reuters) - Iran declared a day of national mourning on Wednesday after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who shared the Islamic Republic's loathing for U.S. "imperialism".

More importantly, Jason, what happens now? Are they going to be able to avoid a civil war or "purges"? Chavez didn't leave much appetite for cooperation, I imagine.

Unlike in the past, Venezuela will not be saved by a windfall of oil revenues, because production is greatly diminished and oversubscribed. Contrary to official numbers, actual production is 2.4 million barrels per day, far below a peak of 3.3 million before Chávez. And sweetheart deals with China, Russia, and Iran as well as giveaways to Cuba and other client states in the Caribbean and Central America are bleeding Venezuela dry. Although China loaned about $28 billion to Chávez in the last 18 months, Beijing has closed its checkbook because of the questionable legality of the interim regime and the simple fact that Venezuela has no crude oil left to sell. As a result of this mess, there are reports that Venezuela is actually importing gasoline to satisfy domestic demand. In short, Chávez politicized the state-run oil company and treated its revenue as his petty cash fund – now the company is ruined and the till is empty.

There are no enemies to the left.

Nothing bigoted here, from none other than Steven Boyd's stunt double, nah.

That said, I'm with posts 2-4 (and 3 is the reason I wouldn't have done a moment of silence) - showing respect would be for the country, not the man.

"Hugo Chavez is a name known to all nations. His name is a reminder of cleanliness and kindness, bravery ... dedication and tireless efforts to serve the people, especially the poor and those scarred by colonialism and imperialism," Ahmadinejad said.

Say, was Chavez ever excommunicated, or did he remain a proper Catholic until the very end? You know, like Pinochet, and Hitler, and the like?

EDIT: A truckload of coke to depletion.

I wouldn't have stopped going east until we took Kiev and Minsk.

To me it's obvious the left either forgot about or moved on from Chavez a few years ago. You don't have to think of an idealistic reason; it could be just the end of the Bush era, or the declining importance of oil prices, or Chavez's withdrawal from public. Or it could be the human rights reports, which have been much more detailed and convincing over the past 5 years. But I think it's obvious that Chavez has pretty low relevance on the left.

I'm not sure what the issue is given that all parties apparently were in agreement. I'm on the far left and think Chavez was a scumbag, so I don't care about the moment of silence. I wouldn't consider him a "leftist" because such labels become irrelevant when you're talking about dictators with fascist tendencies. If the team liked him and asked for a moment of silence I think the team should have respected their request, but it sounds like that wasn't the case.

Can you name which of these two thugs voluntarily relinquished power and left behind a strong economy? Hint: Pinochet.

AA looks back at the evening in 1999 when Chavez threw out the first pitch at Shea. Apparently, that was the Bobby V-in-disguise game that went late into the night.

Even though they were both thugs, that's a pretty important distinction.

Why should an avowed enemy of the U.S. get the same treatment as an ally? Even though they were both thugs, that's a pretty important distinction.

I think Chavez was a corrupt strong man and I'll certainly shed no tears for him, but are you really trying to compare him to Pinochet? Could you point me to the 30,000 people he tortured? Or the 3,000 he killed? Or the political opponents he had assassinated in the United States? Also, Pinochet had ten tons of gold hidden in a hong kong bank, so I'm not sure what you're on about with the not enriching himself crap.

AUGUSTO PINOCHET, who died Sunday at the age of 91, has been vilified for three decades in and outside of Chile, the South American country he ruled for 17 years. For some he was the epitome of an evil dictator. That was partly because he helped to overthrow, with U.S. support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked. Mr. Pinochet was brutal: More than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured, mostly in his first three years. Thousands of others spent years in exile.

One prominent opponent, Orlando Letelier, was assassinated by a car bomb on Washington's Sheridan Circle in 1976 -- one of the most notable acts of terrorism in this city's history. Mr. Pinochet, meanwhile, enriched himself, stashing millions in foreign bank accounts -- including Riggs Bank, a Washington institution that was brought down, in part, by the revelation of that business. His death forestalled a belated but richly deserved trial in Chile.

It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.
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Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

The Soviets were completely exhausted in 1945. They had no manpower left. Every truck, field ration, boot and radio they had was being supplied by the US. Their aircraft industry relied 100% on American aluminum.

That's not the Post's obit. It's an editorial.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death.

In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

She was. I'd rather live under a Pinochet than a Stalin or even a Chavez. They're all scumbags, and there's no political freedom with any of them,
but at least under the Right Wing Scumbag you can get eat decently and get toilet paper.