Fox fires Lyons for insensitive remark

Well...

That's obviously not what they fired him for.

 

Missed the remark and was surprised to hear Jose Mota, who I've listened to on the local Angels game the past three years, doing the ALCS game when I turned it on this morning. Now it makes sense.

As far as the Lyons remarks, well they were pretty stupid, but I'm not sure if it was a firable offense. If they were going to fire the guy for saying things that were just plain dumb, he'd have been gone a long time ago.

Also, I loved how in the story they mentioned in the second to last paragraph that he once pulled down his pants on the field during the game. He is never going to escape that little episode, is he?

Finally, although I'm not too pleased with the circumstances that brought him there, I'm glad to see Jose Mota getting a national audience. I've always liked his analysis on the Angels broadcasts.

 

I would have thought he would have been fired for poking fun of some nearly blind guy who had to use some strange-looking device. He and Thom Brennaman had a good ol chuckle. Richard Sandomir took them to task.

 

I don't exactly know why, but this brought to mind a quote from a classic Calvin and Hobbes strip...riding down on their sled that eventually wipes out:

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

God knows there's definitely a lack of it here.

 

Shocked they couldn't get Orestes Destrade or Roberto Clemente Jr. on such short notice.

 

Fox probably fired Lyons for the accumulation of his screw-ups -- the Jewish comments with Shawn Green, the blind man and now this. None of them is that bad on its own, but I'm guessing he'd been warned and this latest thing was the last straw. I agree that the Hispanic comments were more stupid than offensive, but if Lyons isn't smart enough by now to edit himself in those kinds of areas, it's his own fault.

 

And Reason No. 872 why Piniella needs a permanent spot in the booth when he decides to hang 'em up:

Jose Mota has a nice exchange about how much Leyland and the Tigers like Curtis Granderson, relating that Andy Van Slyke said Granderson is the type of guy he would want his daughter to marry.

Piniella, not skipping a beat, says: "He'd like him a lot more if he can hit this splitter right here."

On a 2-2 count, Granderson hits Haren's next pitch -- a hanging splitter -- for a single to center, and drives in a run.

Good stuff, guys.

 

What do you expect from a dope who "accidentally"--i.e. on purpose--dropped trough in the middle of a game?

Always been a dope.

 

I'm Hispanic and I was not offended. Of course, Lyons should have said "esta hablando," and things would have been kosher [/bad pun]

 

Another great Steve Lyons moment: The time he was with the Red Sox and standing on second, with another runner on first, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and Wade Boggs comes to the plate, back when Boggs was hitting like .380 every year. What does Lyons do? He tries to steal third and gets thrown out by a mile to end the game.