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Locked on 10/14/2006 11:19:51 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
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Posted on 10/14/2006 10:33:36 PM PDT by Romney08
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 comments. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.
"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.
Lyons had been working in the booth for the ALCS alongside Thom Brennaman and Piniella, the No. 2 broadcast team for Fox this postseason.
A call to Lyons' cell phone was not immediately returned Saturday.
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.
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.
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.
The network apologized for Lyons' remarks at the time.
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.
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AP Baseball Writer Ben Walker contributed to this story
Lyons made an ugly joking reference to fearing for his personal property in the presence of an Hispanic.
Dumb moves all around.
?? got me...
Same here>
"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons continued.
so this is racially insensitive and is grounds for firing now huh pc run amock is not even the word for this horses**t i know at least one house that will not be watching the world series or next years play offs this year or any year fox carries it
The person who needs to speak up about this is Lou Piniella. Piniella is supposedly the one Lyons was being "insensitive" to, right? Well, if anyone, Piniella knows that there is nothing wrong with anything Lyons said. If he is an honorable person, he will come to Lyons's defense.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1719540/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1719481/posts
No, he made a reference to Piniella's earlier comment about finding and keeping a wallet full of money.
Really? Wow, thanks for clarifying.
Note to self: Don't make jokes to anyone who isn't white.
He was clearly talking about Pinella taking his wallet. After all he was the one talking about wallets.
Did you get this from the above article, or did you actually watch the broadcast & hear something not reported here? The account in the article does not conform to your interpretation:
Piniella ... compar[ed] Scutaro's production to finding a "wallet on Friday" .... Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" - butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" - and added, "I still can't find my wallet."
Based on this it sounds like Lyons was simply playing off of the odd expression Piniella had chosen to use. I believe the word for this is "banter" and it is commonplace in baseball broadcasting teams, at least when the PC police aren't on patrol.
another thread here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1719481/posts
oop... skimmed right past you
The people who have brought about this kind of ultra intolerance of anything they find remotely offensive are the same ones who blow their own trumpets proclaiming how wonderfully tolerant they are.
To bring in their ideal utopia of tolerance (they hypocritically rationalize) a lot eggs and lives must be broken to terrorize anyone who does not instantly obey their orders of how to live.
Pinella isn't white?! Since when?
Seriously, I hope he doest the right thing and speak up on this madness...
This guy sounds inappropriate all the time, no matter what the topic. Hispanic was just one thing among many. Not a nice guy. Weirdo. Good riddance. He should take his talk to the barroom.
You're saying that it isn't racist to suggest that all Hispanics are thieves (what Lyons did)? The guy is a jerk, who has said jerk things to Jews and blind people in the past. Fox said enough is enough.
Settle down. Last I checked, Fox Broadcasting could give 2 sh*ts what liberals think. Contrary to your hysteria, there were actually no public outcries. Fox simply pulled the plug on Lyons, who put his foot in his mouth for the last time. It's their bullhorn, their decision.
I'm just shocked that anyone from the Red Sox organization has a sense of humor at all.
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