From the Associted Press’ Jane McCauley :
A talk-show host for the San Francisco Giants’ longtime flagship radio station apologized for racial remarks he made about the team’s Latino players ” and a high-ranking station executive said he would not be fired.
On the air late Wednesday after the Giants lost 3-2 to the Colorado Rockies, Larry Krueger of KNBR (above) went off about the struggling club and its “brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly.”
Later, he said, “You have a manager in Felipe (Alou) whose mind has turned to Cream of Wheat.”
Krueger apologized, but that meant little to the Giants.
“I haven’t heard anything like that since John Rocker,” Venezuelan shortstop Omar Vizquel said Friday, referring to the former Atlanta Braves pitcher’s remarks in a 1999 interview with Sports Illustrated in which he bashed gays, minorities and foreigners. “I think an apology is not going to be enough for that type of comment. I’ve said things I’ve regretted, too, and I wish I could take them back. I would give a guy a second chance if I knew him better, but I don’t know him.”
What’s really sad is if he had said brain dead American players no American player would have noticed, and no media outlet would have covered it anyway.
I have a fun idea for you, Tim. Why don’t you move to another country and take a job and see what a fucking blast it is to get by every day in a climate where yours isn’t the dominant language or culture. When you find out that your everday mistakes have been characterized by the locals as the actions of a “stupid American”, and you just laugh it off, then you can talk about how overblown this is.
And yeah, the media have a lot of nerve covering this story. Never mind that a guy doing a chat show on KNBR is part of the media.
If Larry Krueger is not a racist he is certainly in an idiot. The day after the 9/11 events he said something to the extent of: the US should bomb and kill civilians in large numbers in other places in the world if this meant protecting Americans. That comment of course didn’t draw a reaction -except from a couple of callers- due to the shock of the 9/11 events themselves (a lot of commentators got away with much worse), but it was an example of how Krueger thought of other groups of people on the one hand, and how unable he is as a commentator of weighing his words on the other. I also find Krueger extremely incapable as a commentator. He lacks the sophistication and the ability to intelligently interact with his audience. Branding the Caribbean players of the Giants as brain-dead is certainly a racist comment. If Krueger isn’t a racist he is certainly brain-dead.
NOBODY HAS SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BASHING JEWISH BALLPLAYER SHAWN GREEN. LARRY IS A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING. MY WIFE HEARD THE SHOW, AND ACTUALLY PULLED OFF THE ROAD TO WRITE DOWN THIS PERSON’S NAME. HE SHOULD BE FIRED THE DUMB ASS. THE WORLD DOESN’T NEED PEOPLE ON THE AIR LIKE HIM. IT’S A TOUGH ENOUGH WORLD AS IT IS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM??? JK
I think it’s pretty cool that you could get someone to marry you when you don’t know how to hit the “caps lock” key. There’s hope for everyone!
I have listened to Larry Krueger’s evening talk show consistently for several years, and Larry simply loves to rant. The guy has a lot of good insight on a lot of issues, but he has a tendency to get carried away. Unfortunately, living on the edge got him in trouble. I personally do not believe one scintilla of racism was intended in that comment, and the overblown reaction is as incidious as the comment itself. Now all of a sudden Larry Krueger has become the sacrifical scape goat for the Giants’ miserable season. The simple fact that the word “Carribean” was used to describe the Giants has profaned the sacred alter of political correctness. I think the guy is a genuine Giant fan, and any fellow Giant fan can sympathize with an emotional outburst. GROW UP BAY AREA AND GET A GRIP… this kind of INTOLERANCE is the road to insanity.
Thanks, Dean.
If you think Krueger is being judged harshly for one mistake, well, that’s a legit opinion. But his use of the word “Carribean” alongside the words “brain dead” was not merely “politically incorrect”.
racism : The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior (or inferior) to others.
I’ll leave it to you to determine if one racist remark makes the commentator a racist. But I don’t think Felipe Alou or his ballplayers overreacted. To repeat what I said above, why don’t you move to another country and take a job and see what a fucking blast it is to get by every day in a climate where yours isn’t the dominant language or culture. When you find out that your everday mistakes have been characterized by the locals as the actions of a “stupid American”, and you just laugh it off, then you can talk about how overblown this is.
At least he never called Barry Bonds a nigger
thanks for setting the bar super low, Bryne