ESPN’s Colin Cowherd announced his departure from the network last week, but today ESPN cut him off entirely after his comments about Dominican baseball players got some serious blowback.

On the air yesterday, Cowherd said that he’s never bought into the idea that baseball is a “complex” sport. He explained, “A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world-class academic abilities. A lot of those kids come from rough backgrounds and have not had opportunities academically that other kids from other countries have.”

Well, that comment got a lot of attention, most notably from Dominican native and Toronto Blue Jays player Jose Bautista:

Dear Mr. @ESPN_Colin before i rip you a new one i would like for you to explain what u meant to say about baseball and dominicans, please — Jose Bautista (@JoeyBats19) July 23, 2015

The MLB said in a statement, “Major League Baseball condemns the remarks made by Colin Cowherd, which were inappropriate, offensive and completely inconsistent with the values of our game. Mr. Cowherd owes our players of Dominican origin, and Dominican people generally, an apology.”

Early today, Cowherd defended himself on his show, lamenting how politically correct people are these days, invoking the news item about tension between Wyatt Cenac and Jon Stewart over the latter’s impression of Herman Cain.

Cowherd continued to insist that baseball isn’t terribly complex and said that most players in general haven’t gone to college and “can’t even understand languages with their teammates.”

He admitted he could have maybe phrased it differently, but argued he brought up the Dominican Republic only because they’ve produced a lot of good players. He did also go on to cite their education stats.

Well, after he said all that, ESPN announced Cowherd will no longer be appearing on their air. Cowherd tweeted this out afterwards:

I did not intend to offend anyone w my comments. I realize my choice of words was poor and not reflective of who I am. I am sorry. — Colin Cowherd (@ESPN_Colin) July 24, 2015

You can watch Cowherd defending himself earlier here (including his initial comments), via ESPN:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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