Ron Darling uttered an oft-used idiom that dates back centuries Saturday night, but he still found himself in hot water with (parts of) the Twitter mob.
The TBS baseball analyst put himself in a pickle during Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Fenway Park on Saturday night when he described New York Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka’s battle with control as a “chink in the armor.”
Despite that saying dating back more than 600 years, the New York Daily News accused Darling of using a “slur,” an assertion apparently based on the fact that Tanaka is Japanese.
Darling, whose mother is Hawaiian-Chinese, apparently felt he needed to make a statement apologizing for his use of words.
“Earlier (Saturday night) I used an expression while referencing Masahiro Tanaka’s recent pitching performance. While unintentional, I apologize for my choice of words,” Darling said in a statement to Yahoo Sports.
While the word “chink” by itself undoubtedly is an awful slur, no one would know better than Darling, given his heritage. His track record as a TV announcer also speaks for itself, so the fact Darling still decided to apologize says a lot about his character or the current social climate — or both.
TBS won’t discipline Darling for the comment, and he’ll be back on the call Monday night at Yankee Stadium for Game 3 between New York and the Boston Red Sox. We’ll have to wait and see whether Darling feels the need to address the situation on air, too.
