Indians analyst: Shin-Soo Choo "needed a little more sushi before the game"
Indians television analyst Rick Manning went down the rocky Ethnic Foods Humor path last night on this double by Cleveland's Shin-Soo Choo. As Choo, who is Korean, hit a ball off the outfield wall, Manning joked that "Choo needed a little more sushi... at the... before the game." There's clearly no ill-will from the home analyst here, but that doesn't mean Manning's quote didn't cause a brief stir. (Then there's the fact that sushi isn't likely to increase a hitter's power anyways - steroids would have been more accurate, but I suppose that's beside the point.) It doesn't appear Manning will face any discipline at this point from the joke, but if we've learned anything over the years, it's simply much safer for announcers to not wander into ethnic foods territory. Just ask Bob Griese.
It was an interesting range of emotions listening to my commentator yesterday. After going to an Indians game at Yankee Stadium about a month ago and hearing some of the most disturbing racist things against Choo from the Yankee fans around me, my jaw dropped when I heard the sushi line. But as the cleverly named burningriverbaseball pointed out, they did go on to say that the players had all gone out to sushi beforehand, which if true would just make this an unfortunate case of foot-in-mouth disease. If you're going to report on this and condemn Manning, you should at least play the full sound clip and perhaps even check with a team rep to see whether or not the team did in fact go out to sushi before the game.
@Kates254 It wasn't later in the game that the same exact announcer said they all eat sushi before the game, IT WAS THE VERY NEXT THING HE SAID!!!!!!!!!!!!
@PEngle39 @Kates254 Haha, I didn't say it was later, I said they went on to say that - I'm pretty sure it was the other announcer. But regardless, this site should have played the full clip instead of throwing Manning under the bus like that. I think we're on the same side here! Go Indians!
Hilariously - by the way - Choo just hit basically the same exact play right now. No mention of needing more sushi this time!!
You guys don't miss anything do you. Later in the game his partner, Matt Underwood said that people looking to watch America's Got Talent would half to Devo it, leading to Rick Manning singing Whip It. All in all an epic game for the STO booth. Also, it wasn't racist at all, if you had a longer clip, Underwood later went on to explain that all the players eat sushi before the game and it has nothing to do with Choo being Korean.
Can't decide whether to classify this as stupid, ignorant, asinine, or racist. What a freakin douche bag...
