Firings at KNBR
It looks like the Giants craptastic season has claimed some more people-- at KNBR. In light of KNBR's sport talk show host Larry Krueger's statements last week about the Giants being made up of "brain-dead Caribbean hitters" KNBR fired Krueger as well as long time program director Bob Agnew and the morning show producer Tony Rhein. As they say, it's not the crime but the cover-up and in this case, it's not the crime but the joking about it afterwards that did them all in.
On Monday, Felipe appeared on ESPN’s "Outside the Lines" and referred to Krueger as a "messenger of Satan." In response, KNBR’s morning show aired snippets of Alou's Satan comments and parodied it with references to the Satan on "South Park." An interesting reference considering Satan is mainly depicted as wracked with inner turmoil due to a dysfunctional relationship with his boyfriend Saddam Hussein.
In firing Krueger, Agnew, and Rhein, KNBR issued a statement saying that their jokes "demonstrated an utter lack of regard for the sensitivity of the issues involved and a premeditated intent to ridicule Felipe Alou's commentary." In other words, if you're trying to appear all contrite and apologetic over an offensive comment, don't make light of the person you've offended.
Image of Satan & Saddam from "South Park"
As for the original comments themselves, the reaction on the blogosphere seems to be either that everyone is overreacting or that he's just taking things out on Krueger because Krueger's been dissing the Giants all season. We don't think so. Krueger's comments seemed to have really pissed off a lot of people, and not just Felipe.
In everything we've read, players seem genuinely upset and it's not just with members of the Giants too-- both White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen and Red Sox outfielder David Ortiz have condemned Krueger's statements. Remember too that Felipe didn't hear the comments but started complaining only after hearing complaints from his players who heard them.
Krueger might have been making a point about the Giants lack of plate discipline, a true problem and one that doesn't just extend to the plate, but in pointing out that those who had the problem were of one ethnicity is just, well dumb, and highlights an already slightly tense fault line that exists between Latin American players and plain ole American players. After all, you could accuse Lance Niekro or Michael Tucker or Ray Durham of the same problem, but Krueger only picked upon one group.
Latin American players are already sensitive to statements like the one he made too because there's always been a stereotype that the Latin American player isn't very intelligent, a stereotype given to them mainly because many of them come straight from their countries and don't speak English very well ("baseball been very very good to me"). Yes, Latin American players are known for being free swingers (the saying goes "you don't walk off the island...") but instead of saying that Krueger called them brain-dead—- dumb. Which is what Krueger was in saying what he did.