Oh, that Lou Piniella. :-)
Posted on 10/14/2006 5:25:25 PM PDT by raccoonradio
DETROIT (AP) -Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series.
The network confirmed Saturday that Lyons was dismissed after Friday's game. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.
Piniella had made an analogy involving the luck of finding a wallet, then briefly used a couple of Spanish phrases during Friday's broadcast.
Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" - butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" - and added, "I still can't find my wallet."
"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons continued.
Lyons claimed he was kidding.
"If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry," Lyons said in a phone interview. "But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated."
Lyons flew Saturday to Los Angeles, where he hoped to meet with Fox chairman David Hill. Lyons had been working in the booth for the ALCS alongside Thom Brennaman and Piniella, the No. 2 broadcast team for Fox this postseason.
"Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," network spokesman Dan Bell said.
In the second inning of Friday's game between Detroit and Oakland, Piniella talked about the success light-hitting A's infielder Marco Scutaro had in the first round of the playoffs. Piniella said that slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Scutaro's production to finding a "wallet on Friday" and hoping it happened again the next week.
Later, Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get "en fuego" - hot in Spanish - because he was currently "frio" - or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up.
Fox executives told Lyons after the game he had been fired.
Piniella, approached before Saturday's Game 4, declined to comment on the situation except to say: "No, he's not here today."
This was not a first-time offense for Lyons, nicknamed "Psycho" during his nine-year big league career as a utilityman that ended in 1993 with the Boston Red Sox.
Hired when Fox began broadcasting baseball in 1996, Lyons was suspended without pay in late September 2004 after his remarks about Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Green is Jewish and elected not to play one of the two games at San Francisco that took place during the Yom Kippur holiday.
Earlier in the playoffs, while working the Mets-Dodgers NLDS, Lyons unwittingly made fun of a nearly blind fan who was wearing special glasses to see the game.
"He's got a digital camera stuck to his face," Lyons said.
He also once pulled down his pants on the field during his playing days.
Lyons, 46, was a career .252 hitter with 19 home runs and 196 RBIs for Boston, the Chicago White Sox, Atlanta and Montreal. He was a first-round draft pick by the Red Sox, 19th overall, in 1981.
Ofercryinoutloud.
I'll give them insensitive.
I'm offended that they're broadcasting baseball when House is supposed to be on. Does that mean they're all fired?
Steve Lyons was fun to follow with the Boston Red Sox during the mid-1980s when they lost tons of games and apparently didn't know what to do about the fact that Ronald Reagan still held office. Anyway, it was a fun time. I listend to WFNX and went to Boston Red Sox games at night in which they usually lost - despite the fact that Roger Clemens was now on the team and doing well.
Well, his nickname is "Psycho."
Besides, if Lou Piniella was really offended, he would've just turned around and beaten the crap out of Lyons. This is, after all, LOU PINIELLA we're talking about here.
}:-)4
Oh, that Lou Piniella. :-)
I thought Piniella was an Italian name.
right
So did I.
Steve Lyons was one of the worst announcers I've ever heard. Fox is lucky that they were handed this chance to let him go and they took it.
Heard the entire exchange. This is utter bunk. Baloney. Road apples. Nonsense.
To tell you the truth, the crack about the blind guy may have done it more than this. That one kind of crossed the line; OK for National Lampoon but not a TV sportscast.
PC is ruining the nation, in my opinion. Everyone has a paper-thin skin, everyone's looking for an insult, no one can take a joke, and the whole thing has become ludicrous. My previous comments stand as written.
Gee it was so "offensive" that even thought I watched that game I didn't remember it all.
It's a bad joke.
They should've fired him for being unfunny if anything.
But I don't quite understand why they would fire him for anything else.
btw rumor has it Lou Pinella may get Cubs job; and A's
may fire Macha despite them winning AL West.
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