Delete your account: Jeff Passan nukes fan for dumb Rafael Devers insult

ESPN's Jeff Passan tweeted a perfectly-normal story on Boston Red Sox star Rafael Devers earlier this week. The Red Sox star conducted his interview in Spanish, which is normal for baseball stars who speak English as a second language. Devers is from the Dominican Republic, mind you, a country which has produced many of baseball's greatest stars.

So, to sum this all up in short, there is nothing wrong with Devers conducting interviews in Spanish, or any player of a certain nationality speaking in their native tongue, whether that be Devers or Shohei Ohtani. Unfortunately, this is hard for some fans to understand, as they'd rather athletes conform to their interests. That is not how the world works.

One user, whose comment is linked here via screenshot, asked why Devers didn't speak English in his interviews and seemed to take offense to that fact. Jeff Passan found the comment, and quickly responded.

"He speaks perfectly fluent English. He's simply more comfortable answering questions on camera in his native language," Passan wrote. "What's weirdest of all is a person who cares about what language someone else is speaking when his use of English reveals him to be irretrievably moronic."

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Why doesn't Rafael Devers conduct interviews in English?

Devers has every right to speak to the media as he pleases, and as we found out just this season with Ohtani, there are often misconceptions when a language like Spanish or Japanese is translated to English.

After Ohtani hit his first home run as a Dodger, his interpreter claimed he met the fans who caught the ball. However, that was never the case, and it turns out Ohtani never directly said he met with said fans. Instead, those fans felt threatened by Dodgers security, and snubbed by Ohtani. It was the first of many incidents this season when the Dodgers have wronged their fanbase, with the most recent involving Ohtani bobbleheads.

Nonetheless, one can understand why Devers would prefer to avoid these scenarios. Yes, his English is capable enough for day-to-day usage, but the modern media landscape requires an expertise of the language. If Devers doesn't feel confident enough to give quotes in English, it's fairly easy to understand why.