More than five years after declaring the New York Yankees “lucky” for losing out on the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, sports radio legend Mike Francesa has addressed one of his worst takes.
Predictably, Francesa did not admit it was one of his worst takes when addressing his initial opinion of Ohtani. Instead, he used ignorance as an excuse for nearly labeling Ohtani a bust before he even played a regular season game in Major League Baseball.
I mentioned this a couple of times, so here you go. This is Francesa on his podcast two weeks ago, attempting to explain/defend “The Worst Take Ever” in the video above this one.
Decide for yourselves whether it’s horseshit or not. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/er7Ahr60hs
— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) July 27, 2023
“I made a comment about Ohtani when I hadn’t even seen him play yet,” Francesa said on a recent episode of his podcast. “All I said was I didn’t want to pay the guy a fortune until I saw him play. That was it. I hadn’t seen him play yet. I don’t think anybody would say he’s not good. But I still don’t like the feel of it and the people who say he’s already better than Babe Ruth, I don’t get it. How about standing the test of time for a while first? Babe Ruth didn’t do it for a year or two.”
Actually, Babe Ruth did it for exactly a year or two. In fact, Ruth never had a year where he played 100 games in the field and started 20 games as a pitcher in the same season. Ohtani has now done it three consecutive seasons. Once Ruth became a full-time outfielder, he rarely pitched. Also, “I don’t think anybody would say he’s not good” is a heckuva quote about Ohtani in 2023.
Francesa is right, though. He hadn’t seen Ohtani play yet in 2018 when he said, “I didn’t want to pay the guy a fortune until I saw him play.” And if that was all Francesa said in 2018, the now viral clip wouldn’t be as infamous as it is today. But for full context, here is what Francesa said in 2018:
“The Yankees are lucky they didn’t get Ohtani.”
– @MikeFrancesa pic.twitter.com/t1FaaCdQax
— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) May 17, 2021
“The question is, is he going to embarrass somebody? Is he going to be as bad as everyone says he’s been? People were talking about him being the best player in baseball. They have the best player in baseball on that team!” Francesa said. “They brought a guy in and they were talking this guy up like crazy and he hasn’t produced anything yet! Yankees are lucky they didn’t get him!”
Five years later, Ohtani did embarrass at least two people. He embarrassed the legendary Mike and the Mad Dog. Ohtani embarrassed Francesa for claiming the Yankees were “lucky” they didn’t get him. And he embarrassed Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo for claiming the Yankees were better off with Giancarlo Stanton than Ohtani. Find one sensible baseball fan or analyst who would agree with either of those Mike and the Mad Dog takes today. You can’t.
It’s the nature of sports talk. Have a bold take and put some flare on it. But if that take was the Yankees were “lucky” not to get a player who five years later is a historic superstar, maybe just say, ‘Whoops, got that one wrong.’
[Funhouse]
