I'm certainly not an apologist for Colin Cowherd - but this is a bit ridiculous

Yep.  Sounds as if he was right.  Makes sense.  Just people are so sensitive and want to take it offensively.  Obviously he wasn't trying to offend the country or the players.  If anything he was offending the game itself.  Certainly, that is a viable avenue out of the poverty for a lot of folks there.  They certainly aren't going to business school or playing football.

But he should have been more tactful and just used the sport itself as an example and pointed out the various other examples in sports and emphasized the baseball aspect.