Hall of Fame baseball player Mike Schmidt and Boston Red Sox icon Jerry Remy are in hot water for making honest observations and for expressing an opinion. Their mistake was not understanding the new rules regarding free speech. You are allowed to say anything you want as long as it is politically correct. If not, you better shut up.
For Jerry Remy, during a Yankee-Red Sox game he was announcing, Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka was visited on the mound during the inning by not only his pitching coach but also Tanaka’s personal language interpreter, prompting Remy to say, “I don’t think that should be legal, I really don’t.” When asked to expound on this by his broadcast partner he said, “Learn baseball language. It’s pretty simple. You break it down pretty easy between pitching coach and pitcher after a long period of time.” For this, Remy was universally and sharply criticized from every corner.
Believe it or not this on air back and forth may even cost Remy his job. Rumors abounded even before this that due to his age and other personnel changes happening at NESN, the network Remy works for, that Remy’s days are numbered. In 2016, NESN reduced the number of games he broadcasted. Let’s hope this isn’t the final straw of his career.
If so, it will be a bitter pill to swallow for both Remy and Red Sox fans. Remy who has had his fair share of bad news lately, including two bouts of lung cancer and a son in prison for murder, deserves better. As if this wasn’t enough, a few days after his public character assassination, Remy announced that his cancer is back again.
What exactly did Remy do that was wrong? As baseball games approach the four-hour mark, I for one also believe we need less conversation and people standing around on the pitching mound. For decades battery mates who spoke different languages got by fine by speaking as Remy put it ‘baseball language’ which simply means all players, no matter their language skills, grasp a few common baseball terms and get by just fine. Remy had his opinion and right or wrong it is a reasonable one. For him to be treated as a racist is outrageous.
For his part, Remy had to give the standard issue groveling apology to the PC masters. Fat chance it will do him any good. By contrast, Bill Maher, everyone’s favorite liberal, gets to stay on the air despite his faux pas, while Jerry Remy will never be forgiven.
Mike Schmidt who is the best player to ever put on a Phillies uniform, got into trouble for an answer he gave during a radio interview. He was asked if the Phillies could build a team around one of its young players by the name of Odubel Herrera, to which he responded, “My honest answer to that would be no because of a couple of things. First of all, it’s a language barrier. Because of that, I think he can’t be a guy that would sort of sit in a circle with four, five American players and talk about the game. Or try and learn about the game or discuss the inner workings of the game. Or come over to a guy and say, ‘Man, you gotta run that ball out.’ Just can’t be — because of the language barrier — that kind of a player.”
Afterwards Schmidt got the same treatment as Remy, where people couldn’t wait to pounce on him. Although I disagree with Schmidt’s assessment, as from Roberto Clemente to David Ortiz there have been plenty of team leaders whose primary language wasn’t English. But this was Schmidt’s opinion based on his experience, and there isn’t anything racist whatsoever in his comments.
Political correctness proponents pretend that at the core of it is a general niceness. You know, please don’t say that about so-and-so as it will make them feel bad. This is nothing more than a false front, as political correctness is nothing but a blunt, shameless political tool of the left, to control language and to bully people into silence. For me, I’d rather spend my time with either Remy or Schmidt than with any of their shameless critics.
