New York Daily News Owes Shohei Ohtani An Apology

Unless you walked by a newstand on your way to work or you saw their Tweet, chances are you missed the front page of the New York Daily News:

Judging from their steep decline in circulation, you probably did.

Make no mistake about it, the front page was an unnecessary shot at Shohei Ohtanti, and it was for the “crime” of spurning the Yankees.

As is typical with the New York Daily News, facts have not relevance here.  The front page claims he “fears big city,” which is completely absurd when you consider his final list includes Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Arlington, with is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.   But sure, he’s really afraid of the big city or big market teams.

Speaking of fear, are we really sure a 23 year who is eschewing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars just to compete at the highest level is afraid?  Do we really want to say someone who wants to do the unprecedented in both pitching and being a position player is scared of anything?  Seems like Ohtani loves a challenge.

That’s actually backed up by the seven contenders he has selected.  In a few of these locations, he’s going to have the follow in the footsteps of some terrific Japanese players:

As we have seen with the Mariners and the Dodgers, the list goes well beyond those two legends.  Throw in the Giants, who had Masanori Murakami (first ever Japanese MLB player) and Tsuyoshi Shinjo (first Japanese player to play in a World Series), and you have someone who is not intimidated by anything.

Still, none of these facts prevented the New York Daily News from publishing something just plain wrong.

Really, it should come as no surprise.  The New York Daily News has been known by push beyond the lines of common decency for its front pages, including but not limited to, showing a blow-by-blow of how a woman was murdered.

It’s also a newspaper that once had the gall to publish an Andy Martino gem saying one of the reasons Mets fans hated Luis Castillo was because he was Hispanic.  Put another way, he was calling Mets fans racist for not liking a player who turned in this gem:

Overall, the New York Daily News published yet something salacious, incendiary, and just plain wrong for reasons they only know.  Only this time, they did it because someone had the temerity to select the baseball destination that was best for him.  If we followed their standards, we could go as far to call them racist.

However, I won’t.  I have actually standards.

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