I’ve taken shots at Colin Cowherd many times in the past and I will do so many times in the future because, hey, we don’t really see a lot of things eye to eye. It happens. If he has heard of me (I seriously doubt he has) and knows any of my opinions (I seriously doubt he does or even cares), he’d probably disagree with me too.
The most recent reason I took issue with Cowherd was, as he was leaving ESPN, he made some pretty controversial comments about Dominican players which, at best, were hamfisted and could’ve been worse if you didn’t take his apology at face value. He was soon taken off the air by ESPN, though it didn’t really matter as he was about to start his new job at Fox. One would be forgiven if one were to assume that, when it came to baseball stuff, particularly baseball stuff involving race and ethnicity, Cowherd would continue to not be your go-to source for the good opinions.
But credit where it is due, Cowherd spoke for a while yesterday about bat flips and the unwritten rules and Bud Norris’ controversial comments in that Jorge L. Ortiz story about the racial and ethnic divide in sports and he was pretty much right on the money.
His take: baseball is fun, or at least it should be. Getting bent out of shape about unwritten rules and decorum is old man business and makes ballplayers look boring, unfun and, potentially, worse. Watch:
No, he’s not digging deep on the racial/ethnic angle of it here, but that stuff in inextricably linked to the unwritten rules business and I’m sure Cowherd knows that. But that aside, he’s dead-on about baseball’s stifling culture being unappealing to young fans, new fans and, generally speaking, being boring and stodgy. It’s a game. Don’t take yourself too seriously, ballplayers. Have some fun out there. And don’t be such a buzzkill when someone else is.
Good for Cowherd for hitting this one on the nose.
