New York Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen came under fire and had to apologize for using a racial slur in the clubhouse. As the story goes, he called pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka’s interpreter a “chinaman.”

Warthen publicly apologized Wednesday night for having directed a slur once commonly used to denigrate people of Asian descent at Cutler.

According to an account in The Wall Street Journal, a reporter was speaking with the interpreter in the clubhouse Monday when Warthen approached. During the ensuing conversation, the pitching coach reportedly apologized to Cutler for previously using the word in a joking manner.

In today’s edition of The Dugout, we explore the reasons for that conversation in a mature, objective manner.