Steve Lyons Fired By Fox

[ecrazy]

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2006/10/15/lyons_fired_by_fox/


Lyons fired by Fox
Hispanic remarks called insensitive

By Nick Cafardo and Gordon Edes, Globe Staff  |  October 15, 2006

Former Red Sox utilityman Steve Lyons was fired by Fox after he made what the network deemed insensitive racial remarks Friday during the telecast of Game 3 of the ALCS.

Lyons directed the remarks at Lou Piniella, who joined Lyons in the booth as color commentators alongside play-by-play man Thom Brennaman.

Lyons, 46, made reference to Piniella's Hispanic heritage in an inappropriate manner, according to network spokesman Dan Bell.

The network replaced Lyons, who also does color commentary for Los Angeles Dodgers telecasts, with Angels announcer Jose Mota for yesterday's telecast. ``Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," Bell said.

The comments came in the second inning when Piniella spoke about A's shortstop Marco Scutaro's success at the plate in the playoffs. Piniella went into an analysis of how Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to be more productive and compared Scutaro's production to finding a ``wallet on Friday" and hoping it would happen again the next week.

Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get ``en fuego" -- ``hot" in Spanish -- because he was currently ``frio" (``cold"). After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons chimed in that Piniella was ``hablaing Espanol" and added, ``I still can't find my wallet."

Lyons, who did four tours with the Red Sox in his nine-year career, added, ``I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now."

Lyons flew to Los Angeles, where he hoped to meet with Fox president and CEO David Hill. ``If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry," said Lyons, who was told by Fox executives after the game that he was fired. ``But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated."

All the right moves

["THE" MoSav]

Good, he was out of hand with his comments...

[jeromechickenbone]

maybe i missed it but what the fuck did he say that was wrong? That piniella was "hablaing espanol"?  WTF?

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

LMAO! They're the racist ones. He never made a connection with losing his wallet being due to Hispanics...LMFAO@the way Fox connected it.

[rik]

The fuck? I don't see how that was racist.

[Real American]

That is complete bullshit. More political correctness gone mad.

He said nothing that is racist. For God's sake, Lou Pinella is white.

[rik]

That is complete bullshit. More political correctness gone mad.

He said nothing that is racist. For God's sake, Lou Pinella is white.

Lyons, 46, made reference to Piniella's Hispanic heritage in an inappropriate manner, according to network spokesman Dan Bell.

I still don't see the racism though.

[herpes]

That is complete bullshit. More political correctness gone mad.

He said nothing that is racist. For God's sake, Lou Pinella is white.

nope... sweet lou is half hispanic... but thank god... now lets find a way to get rid of buck, mccarver, breenaman however you spell his name, those 2 in studio shmucks, those annoying graphics and sounds, lets just get rid of fox all together.  Fox's baseball coverage = worst coverage of all the major sports.

[WestCoasta]

whether you like him or not that's kinda fucked up, he didn't say anything wrong, at least the way I see it