New York.– ESPN fired radio host Colin Cowherd for comments he made questioning the intelligence of baseball players from the Dominican Republic. Cowherd, who had recently announced he will be leaving for FOX Sports, apologized Friday during his final ESPN show and via Twitter.
The host of The Herd made his remarks while discussing whether a front office exec, the Miami Marlins manager Dan Jennings, can climb down from the ivory tower and manage.
"It’s baseball," Cowherd said Thursday. "You don’t think a general manager can manage? Like it’s impossible? The game is too complex? I’ve never bought into that… A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world-class academic abilities. A lot of those kids come from rough backgrounds and have not had opportunities academically that other kids from other countries have."
Cowherd insinuated that people from the Dominican Republic aren’t that bright in order to make the point that baseball isn’t complex in order to defend the Marlins hiring their general manager as their manager a few months ago.
The Major League Baseball Players Association demanded an apology, and Dominican players such as Toronto’s Jose Bautista and Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera sent angry tweets.