Jack Morris is in trouble, and rightly so. We had gotten beyond — supposedly — using ethnic mockery as part of our professional motif, whether it’s in a baseball broadcast booth or any other corridor of American life.
But he stepped in it pretty deeply Tuesday night when, during the Los Angeles Angels-Detroit Tigers broadcast, he lapsed into using a cringeworthy Asian accent in advising the Tigers to “be very, very careful” in pitching to Shohei Ohtani.
Bad moment. Bad judgment. Playful design, which immediately exploded on a Hall of Fame pitcher and a solid Tigers broadcast analyst. A potential suspension looms, and that’s more than deserved.
A thought on how this can, and should, further be handled by Morris and forgiven by the Tigers and Asian audience:
Don’t let the folks at Bally Sports write your apology. And, despite that immediate, “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” cliché, a second, truly heartfelt, act of contrition is demanded from Morris no later than today.
Talk about it, minus notes. Talk about your bad, split-second judgment. Discuss why you hate what happened. Deeply discuss that point, because it will demand thought and reflection and true sorrow for what was said. If that regret is real, it will come through as pure as sunlight. And knowing the power to forgive — particularly in baseball — the baseball cosmos, beginning with Asian communities who are rather tired of COVID smears on top of all the other historical abuse they’ve taken, will accept Morris’ apology.
And then we could, and should, move forward, maybe with a quantum leap of sensitivity to why racial caricatures just can’t be countenanced.
If you’re looking for your basic redneck, bigoted clubhouse jackass who oozes intolerance or condescension toward other races or ethnicities, Jack Morris is not your man.
I’ve known him for 47 years. Have been with him in lots of places, including a thousand locker rooms, and not a few saloons where any of the above would have surfaced had this been an innate part of a man who went to Brigham Young University and understood what it’s like to assimilate.
It is known, as well, this is not his first indiscretion. He had some ugly things to say about a woman intern nearly 40 years ago. That, also, was a real and awful moment and cannot be wished away.
What matters, though, in terms of extending Morris the absolution he deserves — if the apology comes from his soul — is a man’s life over nearly a half-century. Are two discrete moments reflective of a greater reality that shadows his every act and word? No. He hasn’t displayed any of that not-so-funny Archie Bunker verbiage in any other context with which some of us are aware.
He is an exceedingly intelligent, steadfastly civil, gentleman who cares deeply about being loved.
That is why he is being shredded by Tuesday night’s slur. He was trying, without the slightest premeditation, to be witty. And now he knows, eternally, that the last word you’d ascribe to racial parody is humor.
Let his potential suspension be the reprimand he and the audience deserve. Do not can him. It will be a waste of a very good resource and career baseball man’s gifts.
Educate him further, and the audience as well, by displaying the peril and stain that flows from being jocular about race.
Morris will be better for this, maybe less self-absorbed, maybe more of a giving, listening citizen, which, when you think about it, is not only his responsibility but all of ours when it comes to being a better brother and sister to those in this complex, diverse, multi-faceted world.
He is too good of a person, and too fine of a professional, to see this lamentable moment turn into a conflagration that hurts all parties, even after he hurt so many Tuesday night.
But it’s all on you, Jack. Keep the Bally Sports people at an arm’s distance. They didn’t say what you said Tuesday. You said it. You offended.
Now, it’s up to you to say what’s needed to be forgiven.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.