Stephen A. Smith has become a household name. He's one of the most successful, accredited personalities and journalists in the sports industry.
However, his expertise mainly lies within the scope of the NBA and NFL, not the MLB. But as a native of The Bronx, Smith's loyalty lies with the New York Yankees, or so he claims. The 56-year-old sportscaster's devotion to his hometown baseball club seems like a facade based on a recent discussion during ESPN's First Take.
Speaking with co-host Molly Qerim and the show's MLB connoisseur, Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, Smith misspoke about the Yankees batting order. He claimed that Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has benefitted from having Juan Soto behind him in the lineup. However, that hasn't been the case -- at all.
"But you do got Juan Soto batting behind you. They can't get around you ... they got to pitch to the brother ... you got Soto waiting in the wings. All of those things facilitate Aaron Judge being who he is," Smith declared.
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Please bar Stephen A. Smith from talking baseball after the Aaron Judge-Juan Soto mix-up
How do we tell him?
Soto has batted ahead of Judge . The former has hit second in all 129 games he's played thus far in his inaugural campaign with the Yankees. Meanwhile, the latter has operated from the No. 3 spot in 131-of-131 contests. That's all fans needed to hear to know Smith literally hasn't watched The Pinstripes once in 2024.
Yes, Judge and Soto have undoubtedly helped boost each other's production. But Smith couldn't be more wrong about the circumstances of the matter when arguing why the consensus AL MVP betting favorite is thriving this year.
Smith is as well-versed as anyone regarding basketball and the Association. Nevertheless, his knowledge of the Yankees and baseball appears limited, and he humiliated himself on national television when trying to talk about those topics.
If this doesn't motivate Smith to avoid discussing the Yanks and baseball in general, then we must take matters into our own hands. There must be consequences for his actions -- we must end this and banish him from giving his uneducated opinion on the sport.