I used to be a huge ESPN viewer. I would watch SportsCenter at least once everyday. Not necessarily in its entirety but I’d watch a little of it.
I also used to be a big fan of First Take with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. I’ve always loved a good debate and they did a halfway decent job.
All that fell apart when ESPN became the LeBron James Network and made sports overly political. Not only that, they made the viewers who even slightly disagreed with them seem racist or bigoted and otherwise turned them off.
Stephen A. Smith fell right into this category. He called anyone who disagreed with his takes about athletes racist or some kind of prejudice. Meanwhile, he would be playing slap and tickle with known spousal abuser Floyd Mayweather. Smith always claimed to be the cutting edge of sports journalism and on top of all kinds of social issues.
Now Smith’s performances have always been over the top. He is looking to create clicks and views on the videos. Basically looking for reactions and twitter applause for what he says. Not to mention being a jock sniffer for any athlete that wanders into the ESPN studio.
But Smith’s facade of social wokeness was shattered today when he made this statement: https://youtu.be/IHBsdObZLcg
What you just heard there was a super woke, ESPN personality saying that Angels All-Star pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani would have a hard time being the face of MLB because he doesn’t speak English.
I know, I am falling into the trap that ESPN laid. This was clearly done to draw attention to the Home Run Derby tonight. And I’m going to post this a short few hours before the derby starts. So there’s that.
The real issue here is the pure and utter racism that Smith is uttering here.
We’ve had a summer full of anti-Asian hate attacks going on, and now a prominent woke commentator goes on national TV saying that a Japanese superstar should speak English. That looks terrible any way you slice it.
Number one, who gives a shit if a baseball player uses an interpreter to speak to the press? Who gives a shit what a baseball has to say anyway? Just go out there, hit the ball and put up numbers. Do your best to save the dying spectator sport that is baseball. MLB needs an injection of energy into their product to get a new audience watching. Why shouldn’t they capitalize on the success of an Asian superstar and market that all over the world?
The more outrageous part of this is that there will be no racial group that condemns Smith’s comments. Because he is a well known black sports commentator, he won’t be treated the same for saying something dumb. If Blind Owl wrote the same on this blog, I’d be cancelled before I even knew it.
Another sickening part of this is the fact that Stephen A. probably doesn’t even believe this. He is just trying to be controversial to get eyeballs on his show. But, there is always that chance I’m wrong (which has happened once before) and he actually believes this.
Even Barstool Sports condemned Smith’s anti-Asian commentary. Baseball blogger took to Twitter mocking him. See that video here: https://twitter.com/Jared_Carrabis/status/1414680555074031616
Basically it all comes down to consistency. If someone the Twitter mob doesn’t like said this, they’d be eviscerated on the internet. Meanwhile, Stephen A. is only getting attacked by places like Barstool Sports and Blind Owl Blogs. I think everyone should be able to say what they believe, but the double standard that exists is incredible.
All that being said, I will be watching the derby tonight. I enjoy seeing some dingers being launched into the stands. And Ohtani being the number seed makes me want to watch even more. Even though he won’t win, my man Trey Mancini is going to dominate. That’s the Blind Owl Lock of the Week.