I didn’t see this live but reading the comments in the article make it sound like an over reaction to me. Announcers have a long held tradition of busting each other’s chops in the booth. A broadcast doesn’t go by where a one guy doesn’t tease the other about never buying dinner or about how one is paid way more than the other. On Saturdays ESPN College Football broadcast the guys ripped Herbstriet for being chauffeured around in a limo and a private jet in his attempt to broadcast two games in different cities on the same day. They even went out of their way to piece together footage of it.
The way it sounds to me is that Lyons is teasing Lou by implying that he was deviously trying to pilfer his wallet. That speaking another language in front of him is his way of plotting against him. It doesn’t sound any different than if Pinella had been whispering to the 3rd guy in the booth.
The “hablaing Espanol” comment is just Lyons playing the role of a meathead. Another typical broadcaster gimmick, Madden has made a career of it.
It sounds like much ado about nothing to me. It’s more likely that Lyons had worn out his welcome with Fox and this simply made a convenient way for them to cut ties with him.
Too often a comment that mentions race is perceived as racist when it has no malice associated with it.
Incidentally, I agree that it was irresponsible editing to not ad any context to the “pulled his pants down” story.
A better explanation maybe? What do you think the typical reader assumed??
There may (note the underline here and in the original) be an agenda to show/reinforce how mean and nasty white people can be toward minorities.
As for Piniella…as a baseball fan, I seem to have the impression that he is not an easy guy to get along with. Are there any additional stories that might suggest that he threw his weight around to get Lyons fired?
Didn’t hear it live, so perhaps it gave a different impression, but upon reading it, it seemed like an overreaction. I did not infer a slur against Hispanics. I read it as him busting Lou’s chops.
FWIW, after reading the cite and the specific Shawn Green comments, I started to think differently. So, if you’re a Fox exec who is already aware of the prior comments, maybe you are predisposed to hear what they heard. And maybe that’s appropriate. That Lyons needs to be especially careful of comments like that after his boneheaded remarks about Green is his own fault. No one’s inclined to cut you much slack if you’ve already said something offensive and stupid on national television. Caesar’s wife and all that.
BTW, I had the same reaction as What the … !!! and others. I remember the “pants” episode, and it was obviously a brain fart. When he realized what he had done, he was clearly embarrassed. To leave out that part gave an impression of a jerk (not that he may not be for the other reasons noted), that this was just one more item in the history of a loose cannon. That’s not what it was. In any other context, omitting this might just be an oversight. In this particular report, it was at best irresponsible.
Mentioning the pants thing is stupid, but so is Steve Lyons. Of course, I personally hope that the whole lot of them end up saying offensive things and getting fired, so Jon Miller & Bob Costas are the only national announcers left in baseball, so I can watch a game without wanting to set my hair on fire.
Steve Lyons belonged nowhere near an announce booth. He must’ve had an airtight contract (which, incidentally, would have expired at the end of this year) because he kept his job despite being unfunny, uninsightful, and generally unlistenable.
Yet, despite his incompetence, he’s canned for someone trying their damnedest to make a racial issue about an unfunny joke. What he said wasn’t racist, it was stupid, and Steve Lyons has been doing stupid for years.
Agee that this is a convenient way to get rid of a totally worthless tool who should have been canned for general incompetence years ago, but this way makes FOX looks good for their anti-racist stance. I don’t even give Lyons enough credit for knowing Pinella was Hispanic- I personally thought he was Italian!
Not remotely racist, but rather a mistimed callback to a previous comment. Looks to me that FOX just was looking for an excuse to get rid of a poor announcer, while looking like they were making some sort of principled stand. If I were in Lyons shoes, I would be considering some legal action for defamation.
Lyons was going to be out of a job at the end of the Tigers / A’s series anyway. He ends up doing one less game the way things shake out. Of course, a network that thinks Til Death is funny probably was going to re-up his contract.
Now we can only hope that Brennaman says something remotely controversial and he gets shown the door just as fast.
That’s offensive? There was a Sam Levinson 78 from over 50 years ago called “The Bar Mitzvah Boy” which included a bit where the boy, not wanting to go to Hebrew School (and thus not get bar mitzvahed) is nagged by his parents with “But you’ll get presents…” I wasn’t an atheist when I went to Hebrew School, but the presents were sure inspiring.
As a point of interest, Lou Piniella is a local boy made good (so is Cards manager Tony La Russa). So he is a big hero around here. I’ll be at the (Pony) ballpark this week and will listen for if this is a topic of discussion, particularly among the Latinos, who may not quite be in a majority but are close, then check back in on how people felt about it.
Jose Mota replaced Lyons for the last game of the series. He works for the Angels most of the year with their Spanish language broadcast team, but also worked with the English language announcers. Fox usually had him by the dugouts giving those useless reports that all of those people do.
