Jack Morris follows U.S. tradition, makes fun of Asian Americans

Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s home run leader, was entering the batter’s box with the score 2-2 in the sixth inning.  So the Detroit Tigers’ play-by-play announcer, Matt Shepard, asked the obvious question of his sidekick, Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Morris.  “Now what do you do with Ohtani?”

Morris affected an exaggerated stereotypical Asian accent and lowered the volume of his voice: “Be ver-ee, ver-ee care-ful.”

Unfortunately, it was already too late for Jack Morris to be careful. 

He had unleashed a very wild pitch – just before the Tigers intentionally walked Ohtani, who barring injury will be American League Most Valuable Player.  At 27 he’s already the greatest sports hero Japan has ever had and is being compared more than favorably to America’s greatest icon, Babe Ruth.  Thus Morris with his attempt at racial humor — something few professional comedians can pull off — created an international incident.

So the next time Ohtani on Tuesday night strolled to the batter’s box, in the ninth inning, Morris told the television audience: “It’s been brought to my attention, and I sincerely apologize if I offended anybody, especially anybody in the Asian community.   I did not intend for any offensive thing, and I apologize if I did.” 

Such a weak and clumsy apology could not save Morris from being indefinitely suspended.  Also, Bally Sports Detroit said he will undergo bias training to learn “the impact of his comments and how he can be a positive influence in a diverse community.”

Joon Lee, speaking on ESPN’s Around the Horn, hammered Morris for falling back on the usual lame apology format of White Americans who utter racist comments: “When you say, ‘I’m sorry if I offended anybody,’ you’re not addressing the intent of what you did.  The only intention in using that Asian accent is to caricature someone, make Asian Americans feel like they’re different, not real Americans.” 

Another Around the Horn panelist, Woody Paige, who’s White, but woke, said: “Of course you offended somebody.  Don’t say ‘if.’  You should say, ‘I’m sorry I offended people.’”

Lee, who was born in South Korea but grew up near Boston, is disappointed in the “refusal by media outlets to label this for what it is.  It speaks to the casual way in which racism against Asians is tossed around in America.   And it speaks to why Shohei Ohtani continues to use translators to speak to the media.”

In that last sentence are echoes of a recent cringey take by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.   He said the New Face of Baseball cannot be Ohtani, “a dude that needs an interpreter.”

Joon Lee made a valid point that slurs against Asians tend to go unchallenged across the American sporting scene, and they reoccur with alarming frequency.   

All the more alarming because of this year’s surge in violence against Asian Americans, who are blamed by White supremacists for the Covid-19 plague.  As if people of Asian descent who were born in Georgia or New York share responsibility for what happened or didn’t happen in the laboratories or forests of Wuhan.

America has a shameful history of trying to separate Asians from the rest of our melting pot.  You don’t need to spend hours studying the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; the name says enough.  Then there were the concentration camps in California that so minimally housed Japanese Americans throughout World War II.

Perhaps times have not changed as much as we like to think.

In a post-practice media chat on Saturday night, Green Bay Packers receiver Devin Funchess made a slant-eyed gesture, reminiscent of the Houston Astros’ Yuli Gurriel in the 2017 World Series. 

For taunting Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish, Gurriel was suspended five games but was allowed to push all five to the next season.  

If I were Asian I might call that a slap on the wrist, though there was no complaint from Darvish, who’s half Iranian, round-eyed and handsome enough to moonlight with a lucrative modeling career.

The most notorious Asian slur was committed by legendary baseball announcer Harry Caray in 1995, lamenting the rising stardom of Hideo Nomo.  During a radio interview with Chicago Cubs manager Jim Riggleman, Caray said, “Well, my eyes are slanty enough, how ’bout yours?”

Unlike Morris, Gurriel, Funchess and (belatedly) Stephen A, Caray did not apologize.  He paid no price for his faux pas, even though Bill Yoshino of the Japanese-American Citizens League pointed out that “it was not the first incident of this nature.”  He recalled Caray saying “Jap” on the air years before his Nomo no-no.  

To provide context, Caray was from the World War II era, tried to enlist to avenge Pearl Harbor, was rejected because of weak eyesight (he always wore thick glasses).  Perhaps he deserved a pass, like John McCain, Vietnam War veteran, saying “Gooks.”

Few others have an excuse for their anti-Asian bigotry.  Tim Cowlishaw, long-time Dallas Morning News columnist, cogently observed: “In this country we’re not particularly good at learning other people’s languages.  But we make fun of people who take the time to learn our language.”