Former Tigers great Jack Morris currently does play-by-play announcing for the team's local broadcasts. He was on the call during the Angels' 8-2 win over the Tigers in Detroit last night, and in the top of the sixth inning he decided it would be a good idea to do ... whatever this is:
That sure sounded like Morris trying out a stereotypical Asian accent while talking about how careful the Tigers needed to be while pitching to Ohtani. Maybe you could argue that he was butchering an attempt at an Elmer Fudd impression, but it's important to keep in mind that Jack Morris is 66 years old, an asshole, and was infamous for being a chauvinistic pig during his playing days. He's not exactly the kind of guy who is begging to be handed the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, that comment just sort of hung awkwardly over the rest of the broadcast, until the top of the ninth inning when Morris, on the occasion of Ohtani stepping up to the plate once more, decided to deliver an on-air apology:
Morris's apology didn't quite reach the dramatic heights of Thom Brennaman's (Nick Castellanos did hit a homer in Cincinnati last night, but it was, alas, to right field) but it raises similar questions along the lines of: Just what the hell is going on inside these baseball boomers' brains all the time? Morris's outburst was similar to Brennaman's hot-mic slur in that it was as offensive as it was confounding. Is this how these guys talk to each other in private all the time? Are these moments supposed to qualify as jokes? Are their inner monologues just constant streams of baffling bigotry that they have to fight to keep from bursting out of their mouths at all times?
These are questions that will take time and effort to answer. In the meantime, it's probably best to just keep all white guys over the age of 55 away from broadcast booths until someone can figure out what's going on.
