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.
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.”
——————————————————————–
If Lyons had said that to Joe Buck it would’ve been a passing glance in jest. Secondly, if Pinella got him fired then he’s a bigger jerk than I thought.
There was nothing wrong with what he said. There was nothing wrong with him criticizing Shawn Green for not playing on a jewish holiday (even if I disagree). I also think while his comment about the blind fan with the digitally enhancing glasses was unfortunate, I don’t think he’d say that again. He wasn’t being mean to a blind man intentionally–just someone who he thought had bad fashion sense.