Stephen A Smith led First Take apologizing for his comments about Sho-Hei Ohtani.
He expressed concern in a Monday episode over the face of baseball needing a translator conducting interviews, and not being able to speak English.
He said, “I don’t think it helps that the number one face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he’s saying”.
The comment was bad enough based on moral ground. It asks an immigrant, moving to a nation full of immigrants, to adhere to an unwritten rule that because English is the spoken language of choice in America, it’s superior.
That because he doesn’t speak English, he’s anything less than a sensation.
That comment was also made during a spike in at least documented Asian-American hate.
But never mind the morality, the comments are just flat wrong.
My timeline lit up like the 4th of July when Shohei Ohtani took the plate at the Home Run Derby. Never have I ever seen so much intrigue for any player in the sport to participate.
Mike Golic Jr said it proved he IS the Face of Baseball….
Never mind the idea of speaking English being a requirement to be the face of America’s Past time, is in fact un-American, but the phrase itself has lost meaning. Baseball as the sport in America is exactly where it says it is. IN Past times.
MLB has had international diversity for quite a while now, and Jorge Sedano says they’re starting to embrace it.
Sho Hei Ohtani didn’t perform to the level we wanted him to this weekend, but his impact was profound.
