Sportscaster fired for racist comment

Monday, October 16th 2006, 5:31 am

By: News On 6

DETROIT (AP) Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series.

Piniella had made an analogy involving the luck of finding a wallet, then briefly used a couple of Spanish phrases during Friday's broadcast.

Lyons said that Piniella was ``hablaing Espanol,'' butchering the conjugation for the word ``to speak,'' and added, ``I still can't find my wallet.''

Lyons continued by saying he didn't want to sit too close to Piniella.