CBS reports the story of FOX firing Steve Lyons and then the LA Times reported he had been warned.
How strange is it that a guy with the nickname Psycho! I mean, doesn’t his nickname offend crazy people? I don’t know Steve Lyons to know whether he was insinuating that because Lou Piniella was hablaing espanol that he might have taken Lyons’ wallet. But I remember hearing the chatter going on back & forth and I thought Lyons’ comment referred to the fact that he was still back where he was still looking for his wallet and the fact he didn’t want Piniella near him had to do with the strange analogy Piniella had used in referring to Marco Scutaro not being a player to be counted on. Then there were the comments about the blind fan with the contraption on his head, both announcers were equally insensitive, and neither was particularly bright in their comments, but I don’t feel either was malicious. The other two “racist” incidents don’t seem to amount to much either in my book, although I personally didn’t hear either one. One had to do with Shawn Green not playing in a game for the Dodgers because of a Jewish holiday and the other had to do with saying something about a couple of players’ names appearing to be diseases rather than monickers on their backs. Steve said he was trying to bring some levity to a serious situation in the case of Green and Pierzynski & Mientkiewicz have names that do look more like diseases than handles. Come on FOX, give the kid a break, it’s not like he pulled his pants down on national television. What do you think?
…Or it’s not like they put Tim McCarver in front of a mike day in and day out.
THAT’S offensive.
Seriously, what he said was a bit tactless. If it were me, I would have had someone (maybe Sweet Lou) talk to him after the show. “Steve, you really can’t say that. People will get the wrong idea.”
And that’s that.