Colin Cowherd was already leaving ESPN by the end of the year but they decided to send him on his way sooner. Cowherd struck a deal to work for Fox Sports but still had the rest of his ESPN contract to finish. He won’t have to worry about that now after the network pulled him off air for his remarks about Dominican baseball players. Cowherd better hope his apology seems sincere because he was already threatened by one player.
@IamJoeSports
It’s far from the first time Cowherd has made remarks with racial undertones, but this time, it wasn’t as subtle. Hardball Talk has the comments with pretty full context that is not a good look for Cowherd or ESPN:
Cowherd: “It’s too complex? I’ve never bought into that ‘baseball is too complex.’ Really? A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world class academic abilities. A lot of those kids come from rough backgrounds and have not had opportunities academically that other kids from other countries have. Baseball is like any sport. It’s mostly instincts. A sportswriter who covers baseball could go up to Tony La Russa and make an argument and Tony would listen and it would seem reasonable. There’s not a single NFL writer in the country who could diagram a play for Bill Belichick. You know, we get caught up in this whole ‘thinking-man’s game.’ Is it in the same family? Most people could do it. It’s not being a concert pianist. It’s in the same family.”
Toronto Blue Jays right-fielder Jose Bautista, or someone on his social media team, caught wind of Cowherd’s rant and took him to task. Bautista tweeted less than an hour after the Jays defeated the Oakland Athletics in a matinee game, and clearly, he wasn’t in a celebratory mood and threatened Cowherd unless he explained himself immediately.
There’s nothing wrong with saying baseball isn’t as complicated as some suggest, but making sweeping generalizations about Dominican players and their intelligence to further the argument is completely unnecessary and incredibly harmful. But it’s par for the course for Cowherd, who continually makes these kind of lazy and stereotypical comments. Especially with the whole Hulk Hogan story going on the same day.
Better pick up Dante from school from now on.
I listened to the entire show, as i do on a daily basis. I believe Colin to be one of the most unique, and insightful people ar espn. To say that comment was racially bias is unfair. He has spoken vastly for the accreditation of all people, as sports ties into the real world. If you arw looking for racial undertones, try mad dog on serrius xm. No one has come after him for the insensitive shit he says. Colin is not the fight you’re after. Your enthusiam is misguided and misdirected.
This is crap. I’m dominican and I listen to him everyday. If you come from where I come from …….he wasn’t to far from the truth. The problem with society today is that no one wants to hear the truth.