Sportscasters behaving badly
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Three sportscasters, representing sports and networks throughout the spectrum, have either been fired or suspended in the last week:
- Steve Lyons, Major League Baseball analyst for Fox Sports, was fired after making comments deemed insensitive to Hispanics. Lyons and partners Thom Brennaman and Lou Piniella made rambling comments having to do with finding wallets and "habla-ing," and laughed at each other's jokes. However, it was Lyons who took the fall, perhaps because he had been involved in two other insensitive incidents before. In one of them, he insulted a legally blind fan; in the other, he criticized Shawn Green for sitting out a game to observe Yom Kippur. Lyons, however, will continue to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers and may join TBS for next season's national telecasts of MLB baseball.
- Lamar Thomas, former defensive back for the University of Miami, was fired by Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast for implying that the fight at last week's game between UM and Florida International, which led to 29 player suspensions and two expulsions, was actually justified. He even said that the players should continue the fight in the parking lot after the game.
- Ray Dunlap was suspended by the Fox-owned motorsports network Speed Channel for one week after comments made on a talk show called "Trading Paint" came to light. In a discussion about Juan Pablo Montoya's debut in stock car racing, in preparation for him driving the Nextel Cup Series Texaco-Havoline Dodge in 2007, Dunlap questioned NASCAR's assertion that 10 percent of its fans are Hispanic. Despite there being no undertones of racism, Dunlap was apparently punished for criticizing NASCAR statistics at a NASCAR event weekend. He will not be part of Saturday's telecast of the Craftsman Truck Series Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.
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