{"id":1211166,"date":"2022-01-12T13:05:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T18:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1211166"},"modified":"2022-01-12T13:05:45","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T18:05:45","slug":"im-actually-happy-to-hear-that-shohei-ohtani-on-being-the-face-of-baseball-responds-to-stephen-a-smiths-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/im-actually-happy-to-hear-that-shohei-ohtani-on-being-the-face-of-baseball-responds-to-stephen-a-smiths-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m Actually Happy To Hear That\u2019: Shohei Ohtani On Being The Face Of Baseball, Responds To Stephen A. Smith\u2019s Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">40<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fim-actually-happy-to-hear-that-shohei-ohtani-on-being-the-face-of-baseball-responds-to-stephen-a-smiths-criticism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1211166&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani took baseball by storm as the modern-day Babe Ruth in 2021, becoming the first player in Major League history to be selected to the All-Star Game as both a hitter and a pitcher.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In November, Ohtani was selected as the unanimous American League Most Valuable Player. With the award, he became just the second Japanese player to win the MVP, after Ichiro Suzuki, who won in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>His stats jump off the page, hitting .257 at the plate with 46 home runs, 100 RBI, and 103 runs scored. He also had eight triples (tied for the major league-high) and stole 26 bases. And while his stats at the plate alone would warrant MVP conversation, Ohtani\u2019s added brilliance on the mound made his season unprecedented. In 23 starts, Ohtani posted a 3.18 ERA in 130 innings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But even with his brilliance, there are those who feel that Ohtani quickly becoming the face of the league \u201ccontributes to harming the game.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Stephen A. Smith of ESPN found himself in hot water following his July comments on Ohtani in which he said that the Japanese star\u2019s need for an interpreter was bad for the game of baseball.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that you got a foreign player that doesn\u2019t speak English, that needs an interpreter \u2014 believe it or not \u2014 I think contributes to harming the game to some degree, when that\u2019s your box office appeal,\u201d Smith <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/angels\/2021\/07\/12\/stephen-a-smith-shohei-ohtani-dude-needs-interpreter\/7939597002\/\">said<\/a>. \u201cIt needs to be somebody like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, those guys. And unfortunately at this moment in time, that\u2019s not the case.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ohtani is from Japan, and while he is not fluent, he can speak English. He also speaks Spanish.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you talk about an audience gravitating to the tube, or to the ballpark, to actually watch you, I don\u2019t think it helps that the No. 1 face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he\u2019s saying, in this country,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to say.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After being destroyed in the media for his comments, Smith apologized, but it certainly fired up the conversation around baseball\u2019s inability to find a marketable superstar to build around over the years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, if I could speak English, I would speak English,\u201d Ohtani <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/shohei-ohtani-february-cover-profile\">told<\/a> GQ in Japanese. \u201cOf course I would want to. Obviously it wouldn\u2019t hurt to be able to speak English. There would only be positive things to come from that. But I came here to play baseball, at the end of the day, and I\u2019ve felt like my play on the field could be my way of communicating with the people, with the fans. That\u2019s all I really took from that in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s mandatory in school, for, like, six years in Japan,\u201d he adds. \u201cMiddle school, high school, which everyone takes. That was the only exposure to English I had before I came over. My high school English teacher was actually my baseball coach\u2026,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cNow that I think about it, he probably can\u2019t speak the language that well. But they teach it to us to, like, pass tests\u2026Not that I want to be dissing the whole English educational system of Japan\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ohtani responded to the pressure of being the face of baseball, saying it\u2019s \u201cwhat he came here for.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore than pressure,\u201d Ohtani <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/shohei-ohtani-february-cover-profile\">said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m actually happy to hear that. It\u2019s what I came here for, to be the best player I can. And hearing \u2018the face of baseball,\u2019 that\u2019s very welcoming to me, and it gives me more motivation to\u2014because I\u2019ve only had, this was my first really good year. And it\u2019s only one year. So it gives me more motivation to keep it up, and have more great years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Major League Baseball is currently experiencing its first work stoppage since the 1994-1995 season, with the owners locking out the players following the expiration of the&nbsp;collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to sports@dailywire.com.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">member<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani took baseball by storm as the modern-day Babe Ruth in 2021, becoming the first player in Major League history to be selected to the All-Star Game as both a hitter and a pitcher.\u00a0 In November, Ohtani was selected as the unanimous American League Most Valuable Player. With the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1211166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}