Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout has suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee. As Trout spoke to the media about the industry, it was apparent that he was dismayed and frustrated about the news. During Wednesday’s edition of First Take on ESPN, featured commentator and executive producer Stephen A. Smith questioned Trout as to why he was always hurt and proceeded to compare baseball to other sports, an opinion that agitated several baseball fans and commentators.
“Mike Trout is a sensational player when he’s healthy,” Smith said. “One of the greatest – he really, really is – and I’m a huge, huge fan, but I’ve grown disgusted with his lack of availability. I know he looks the part. What the hell are you doing to take care of yourself?”
Station anchor Jerry Recco played the audio of Smith’s opinion on Trout on the Boomer & Gio morning show on WFAN and CBS Sports Network on Friday morning. He agreed with him on the first part of his take that it was annoying to see him hurt. From there though, Smith spoke about baseball in such a manner that led Foul Territory host Scott Braun to state that he was “attacking our sport” in a recent edition of the podcast.
“Damn, it’s baseball,” Smith said. “I mean, what are we talking about here? It’s not football, it’s not boxing, it’s not UFC. You’re not running up and down the court 94 feet in basketball for 82 nights a year. It’s baseball. Half the time y’all are standing out in the outfield chewing on pumpkin seeds or something.”
Jonathan Papelbon, a former relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies who was named as a co-host on the Foul Territory podcast in late March, responded to Smith’s discourse on the show. The remarks began with Papelbon remarking that Smith makes these kinds of comments when he is not knowledgeable about what is being discussed. From there, he relayed a story from when Smith was a newspaper writer and attending Phillies games as a member of the media. It came from a conversation with one of the team’s clubhouse attendants who revealed to Papelbon that the team had kicked Smith out of the clubhouse.
“I said, ‘Well, why did y’all kick him out of the clubhouse,’ and he proceeds to tell me that he was doing all kind of shady sh**,” Papelbon said. “Like going through the manager’s office and when he wasn’t in there, going through the training room pulling out reports in all kinds of places he shouldn’t have been, so for me I’ve always looked at the guy like a complete joke.”
Papelbon proceeded to opine that he does not refer to Smith as a journalist, but rather an analyst. Once Smith was presumably kicked out of the Phillies clubhouse, Papelbon believed that he should not have been allowed to cover anyone, ostensibly questioning his journalistic integrity.
“Since that day, I truly do believe that Major League Baseball has kicked him out, and therefore he has all this negative sh** to say about Major League Baseball because I don’t really truly think that he’s allowed in Major League Baseball clubhouses. I don’t know if the Phillies reported this or what they did with it.”
As the segment continued, Papelbon referenced previous incidents with which sports fans took umbrage. Some of these included using the N-word on air when discussing former Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and conveying that having an interpreter did not help baseball fans gravitate towards then-Los Angeles Angels two-way player Shohei Ohtani. Papelbon later referred to Smith as a “racist,” along with calling him “xenophobic” and a “fake person.”
“You’re talking about one of the most narcissistic people you could come across, and the fact that he uses his middle name, A., which probably stands for ‘a**hole,’ is such a joke to me. He doesn’t really even truly know the game of baseball, so therefore his lack of intellect and the way he approaches what he says is just for spite or just to piss off a player or to get thumbs up or followers.
“I challenge ESPN to either fire him or cut his pay or do something about it because, honestly, nobody wants to listen to his shit because everybody knows that is just for likes; it’s just for followers,” Papelbon said. “He really doesn’t actually know what he’s saying, so I don’t really take it as anything to be honest with you. I just take it [as], ‘This is just another idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’”
WFAN morning show co-host Gregg Giannotti questioned off what premise that Smith was racist, to which Recco replied that he was not aware. Moreover, he believes that Smith will issue a response to Papelbon’s statements since “he doesn’t usually let this stuff sit.” Recco referred to an episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show podcast when Smith castigated former ESPN personality Jason Whitlock and vowed not to speak on him again.
“Does he need to respond?,” Giannotti questioned. “He’s making $16 million a year with every job that he has. Jonathan Papelbon’s doing this baseball podcast from his bathroom.”
