Mets Coach In Hot Water

Via CBS –

New York Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen apologized Wednesday for using a slur during a locker-room conversation with Daisuke Matsuzaka’s interpreter.

The slur was overheard by Wall Street Journal reporter Stu Woo.

“I apologize for the thoughtless remarks that I made yesterday in the clubhouse,” Warthen said in a statement released by the team. “They were a poor attempt at humor but were wrong and inappropriate in any setting. I am very sorry.”

Woo wrote Wednesday that he was “startled” when the 61-year-old Warthen approached Matsuzaka’s Japanese-American interpreter, Jeff Cutler, earlier this week and said, “I’m sorry I called you a ‘Chinaman’ yesterday.”

After Cutler replied “It’s OK,” Warthen added, “I didn’t mean to insinuate –- I know you’re not Chinese. … I thought it was a pretty good joke, though.”

Cutler told Woo he wasn’t offended by the joke referred to by Warthen. But it was a different story for the Chinese-American reporter.

“I didn’t want to be complicit in tolerating the use of a slur that should have been retired long ago,” he wrote.

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson also apologized for Warthen’s “insensitive remarks” — the slur was once commonly used to disparage Chinese immigrants, Woo wrote — on behalf of the franchise.

“The remarks were offensive and inappropriate and the organization is very sorry,” Alderson said.

The whole thing reminds me of a scene from a movie.