If "good for the sport" means "drawing in more fans, rebuilding the sport's status as the national pastime, appealing more to flyover America," then it's probably a valid question.

I don't have ESPN, but if that's what SAS said, then yeah, ugh. It's a shitty position to take. But then I recall about 4-5 years ago when Takuma Sato won the Indy 500, and some horrible GOP politician complained about a Japanese guy winning an "American" race.

That was an uninformed comment on many levels, obviously. First, racist. Second, the 500 is and has always been a truly international race, meant to draw the best from all over the world. And third, hating on Sato? Really? Dude lives in Tampa, I think.

But the comment also was probably a fair reflection of what many Americans think, no?

So if you accept the premise that some proportion of Americans are provincial xenophobes, which shouldn't be a controversial proposition, then surely those people may be turned off by Ohtani and be less inclined to watch/follow/spend money on baseball as a consequence.

To what degree is that happening? Not much, I expect. But not a question worth asking?