Stephen A. Smith Isn’t A Fan Of Shohei Ohtani Being The Face Of Baseball While Needing An Interpreter

• Stephen A. Smith’s latest opinion on Shohei Ohtani may just be his hottest take ever.
• Smith has a hard time seeing Shohei Ohtani being the face of baseball because he uses an interpreter.
• Check out more sports coverage at BroBible here.

Stephen A. Smith has made, and will continue to make, an astronomical amount of money by offering up his outlandish opinions across various shows under the ESPN umbrella. ‘First Take’ is the home of the hot take, it’s literally built so Max Kellerman and Smith can battle it out for who has the hottest take of the day, and it’s safe to say Smith won that battle on Monday with what he had to say about Shohei Ohtani.

You could even argue that Smith crossed a line and that his comments about Ohtani were xenophobic, which many on Twitter did.

With the MLB Home Run Derby taking place in Denver on Monday night, Smith and Kellerman were discussing whether or not Ohtani was good for baseball. The fact that the two thought that discussion was even worth having should show you that the program is more often than not a laughing stock because anyone with a pulse knows that Ohtani is great for baseball.

Smith thinks that it’s an issue that Ohtani, the face of baseball at the moment, needs an interpreter.

“When you talk about an audience gravitating to the tube or to the ballpark to actually watch you, I don’t think it helps that the number one face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he’s saying,” Smith said.

Just like everyone with a pulse knows that Ohtani is great for baseball, everyone with a pulse knows that Smith’s comments here are are asinine.

Ohtani has to be the most exciting thing in baseball since Barry Bonds broke the home run record. I think you could easily make the argument that he’s the most exciting thing to happen to the game since Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled it out in their home run race back in 1998.

Ohtani strikes out batters as a pitcher, and in those same games he starts on the mound, he’s usually batting lead-off and sending missiles into the bleachers.

The man is the AL All-Star team’s starting pitcher and is set to bat leadoff as a DH. All of this of course happening less than 24 hours after competing in the Home Run Derby as the No. 1 seed.

Him using an interpreter to better communicate with the media, his teammates, and coaching staff about sitting down dudes and hitting dingers 473 feet doesn’t have anything to do with anything. The dude is still sitting down batters and hitting 473-foot dingers.

People aren’t buying tickets and turning on the television to watch Ohtani speak into a mic, they’re tuning in to watch the face of baseball break some other record or be the first to do this or that.

To be the face of baseball or any sport for that matter, a player has to appease the super die-hard fan and the extremely casual fan. Ohtani does both of those things better than anyone else in the MLB and whoever you want to put behind him on that list is a distant, distant second.