Stephen A is a blowhard, but I don't think it is a horrible thing to question whether or not a player in the US would be better served speaking English fluently and without the use of an interpreter. It may in fact affect his marketability.
I tend to agree. I'm not a big Stephen A. fan, but I don't think he's being racist towards Ohtani in particular or Asians in general; I think he was just saying (perhaps uneloquently) that if MLB is going to market a player—any player—it sure would help if that player spoke English, because that will make it easier for that player to directly connect with fans, most of whom speak English.
and i am sure this includes those players who speak spanish and not english as well, right? i mean, if you can't speak english you should not be allowed the same status as those who do, right?
wasnt a very similar "argument" posited in the 1940s about integration?
this is clearly a statement rooted in ignorance and xenophobia.
And your comments are a great example of why I no longer comment a lot on these types of things. Unless people toe the liberal/woke party line, you're just a hateful, narrow-minded, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist bigot.
I said nothing about status. And yeah, if you're playing a major sport in a country where the primary language is English, and you're a star and you're going to get interviewed a lot and marketed a lot, it's a pretty good idea to speak English and do so as often as possible. If I were a pro athlete playing in, say, the Turkish basketball league, I wouldn't expect many people there to understand me, and I'd be thinking that I should learn at least some basic Turkish (or whatever their language is called).
As a side note: Being an editor, it's disappointing that many people don't really understand, or properly use, the word "phobia." It means "fear," but it's now equated with any sort of disagreement. Someone thinks immigration law should be enforced—"Xenophobe!" Someone thinks marriage is one man and one woman—"Homophobe!" That's nothing more than a cheap demonization tactic that way too many people have been getting away with for years, usually used because their actual arguments aren't valid. So if you want to go on demonizing people and slapping negative labels on them, have at it, but you're not fooling me.