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.
Update:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061017/ap_en_tv/bbo_lyons_piniella
LOS ANGELES - Fired Fox announcer Steve Lyons got backing on two fronts Tuesday: He can keep his part-time broadcasting job with the Los Angeles Dodgers if he completes diversity training, and Lou Piniella came to his defense.
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Lyons was fired over the weekend for making a racially insensitive comment while on the air with Piniella during the AL championship series.
"There isn't a racist bone in his body. Not one," Piniella said after being introduced as manager of the Chicago Cubs. "I've known the guy personally. He was kidding with me, nothing more and nothing less."
Piniella called Lyons' firing "an unfortunate thing."
Lyons was dismissed after Friday's Game 3 of the ALCS between Oakland and Detroit.
The Dodgers said Lyons would remain on the job for FSN Prime Ticket "upon the completion of diversity training and under probationary guidelines." Lyons works with Charley Steiner on the 40-plus road games that Vin Scully doesn't do.
Piniella made an analogy during Friday's broadcast involving the luck of finding a wallet, then briefly used a couple of Spanish phrases.
Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing" in "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 said.
Lyons claimed he was kidding, and Piniella accepted that explanation.
"If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry," Lyons said. "But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated."
The 46-year-old Lyons was a career .252 hitter with 19 home runs and 196 RBIs for Boston, the Chicago White Sox, Atlanta and Montreal.
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