Ohtani talk

[Ty Cobb]

I see today that Stephen A. Smith of Extremely Soulless Peoples Nation has again gone to the well of soft bigotry by whining that Ohtani is harming the game, 'because he doesn't speak English.'

I'm far from being known as Mr. Sensitivity, but this is just plain offensive. I'd possibly see it differently, but Smith has a long and checkered history of racially inflammatory statements. He's a clueless, tone deaf dolt. When will Disney's woke ownership have had enough of his outright racism and fire this clown?

[Westheim]

Funny how I just wanted to post something about Ohtani in the general ho-hum thread, but now that this is here...

I like Shohei Ohtani. I like order. I watched Sunday's Angels-Mariners game just now for being dulled out of my head (and for the AL West otherwise not really existing in a way that I am aware of it), and I was impressed how when he drew a walk, he put his bat, his gloves, and his body armor all in a neat pile on the ground, whereas literally every other player just scatters all their worldly belongings from the plate to first base upon drawing a walk.

Meanwhile, speaking servicable English would be something I would encourage every non-native English speaker to strive for when playing in MLB. Does he harm the game if he doesn't? Of course not. Bollocks.

[Ty Cobb]

Where's that Thanks button again??? Grrrrr....I miss it.

I agree English is important, but let's ask Ichiro or Beltre or Beltran about it. They seem to have ahem...adequate...fan bases.

[dkgo]

Even for SAS that is a shockingly racist take

[ezpkns34]

Is 100% better for MLB if Ohtani could speak English for marketing purposes. Doesn't mean that it's Ohtani's duty to have to learn English though. I imagine learning Japanese for me wouldn't be very fast or easy either

[thehef]

Pretty ignorant, even for S.A.S. I can only imagine the outrage if someone had criticized a black or brown player who's "neighborhood" English was somewhat unintelligible... And, going back a few years, Fernandomania did just fine despite the need for translators...

[mytreds]

Hitting homers is a good language to know. Pitching strikes too.

[Déjà Bru]

I dislike Stephen A. Smith because he is loud and obnoxious — traits to be abhorred in people — and because he makes money for being so.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

I see today that Stephen A. Smith of Extremely Soulless Peoples Nation has again gone to the well of soft bigotry by whining that Ohtani is harming the game, 'because he doesn't speak English.'

I'm far from being known as Mr. Sensitivity, but this is just plain offensive. I'd possibly see it differently, but Smith has a long and checkered history of racially inflammatory statements. He's a clueless, tone deaf dolt. When will Disney's woke ownership have had enough of his outright racism and fire this clown?

Stephen A. Smith is a jerk. He gets paid a lot of money to say things that will push the buttons of people like you. But 99.999% of what he says is garbage--except for the many perceptive and necessary things he said last summer, after the public execution of George Floyd.

So, yeah, what he said about Ohtani was racist. And he deserves everything he gets, up to and including being fired. I'm sick and tired of sports talking head egomaniacs who bluster and scream and strive to provoke and have nothing at all useful to say. And as a black man, I'm embarrassed that an idiot like Stephen A. Smith gets paid so much to be an idiot. The way I was raised, each one of us "represents the race" and should adhere to certain standards of behavior no matter who he or she is. Those who step outside those standards are an embarassment...to all of us.

But you lost me after the "woke" comment. Do you even know what the term means? Or did you just cut and paste it from some right wing contrived indignation website?

Would you be equally indignant if some white sports "analyst" said something racist about the ghetto dialect of that idiot Adam "Pacman" Jones? Or do you only feel outraged when a black man says something stupid?

[Syd Thrift]

I feel, and I could be wrong here, that this is less about SAS's own skin color and more about how it's very quickly becoming not OK to do this anti-Asian crap. It never should have been okay, of course. And I'm not 100% sure here whether the story is that we are finally treating anti-Asian hate the same way we've been treating anti-Latino or anti-Black hate, at least in the public discourse of major network television, or if it's that someone actually felt it would be a good, solid hot take to whinge about how someone "not speaking the language" sullies the game (like, Ichiro spoke like 10 words of English when he signed with the M's and I don't remember anyone getting pissy about that, and for that matter we've had Latino players in MLB for literally decades and the "HUR DUR THEY DON'T SPEAKING MERKAN" crowd has been silenced for, jeez, 30 years now probably).

But either way, while I see your point, Antonin, and I see similar things where women and POCs are dealt with more harshly for bad things they do*. It isn't f'ing "woke" to bring this point up, any more than it's "woke" to say that sports "analysts" shouldn't engage in crap that should have died in 1985. That said, I'm skeptical that that's happening here. White people can and have been canceled for similar bad takes.

*My biggest hobby horse right now: Christy Teigen, John Legend's wife, has gotten a lot of crap for telling this 16 year old kid who'd married this creepy 50 year old failed actor in like 2013 to kill themseves. Which, you know, don't beat up on kids. But somehow that 50 year old, who is essentially, I'm sorry, a rapist because ain't no way that poor person (who's in the news again because they finally divorced the guy over COVID) was emotionally mature enough to consent, that guy has gotten off pretty much scot-free while the ire of social media has been pretty solidly directed at Teigen.

[Ty Cobb]

Originally Posted by Antonin

But you lost me after the "woke" comment. Do you even know what the term means? Or did you just cut and paste it from some right wing contrived indignation website?

Would you be equally indignant if some white sports "analyst" said something racist about the ghetto dialect of that idiot Adam "Pacman" Jones? Or do you only feel outraged when a black man says something stupid?

I won't engage in a conversation that opens with personal attacks, pre-judgement of motivation, and race baiting. I don't need nor want your permission to use the word 'woke'. Racism of any sort is offensive, even the kind where you assume someone's politics, race, and motivation based on a post in a public forum. Good day.