Lyons’ tongue gets him the boot

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.

The network confirmed Saturday that Lyons was dismissed after Friday’s game. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.

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.”

“I don’t understand him, and I don’t want to sit too close to him now,” Lyons continued.

Lyons claimed he was kidding.

“If I offended anybody, I’m truly sorry,” Lyons said in a phone interview. “But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated.”

Piniella said that slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Scutaro’s production to finding a “wallet on Friday” and hoping it happened again the next week.

Later, Piniella said the A’s needed Frank Thomas to get “en fuego” – hot in Spanish – because he was currently “frio” – or cold. Lyons was suspended without pay in late September 2004, after his remarks about Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Green is Jewish and elected not to play one of the two games at San Francisco that took place during the Yom Kippur holiday.

The network apologized for Lyons’ remarks at the time.

Earlier in the playoffs, while working the Mets-Dodgers NLDS, Lyons unwittingly made fun of a nearly blind fan who was wearing special glasses to see the game.

“He’s got a digital camera stuck to his face,” Lyons said.

Polanco makes big difference

Placido Polanco separated his left shoulder two months ago and was worried his season was over. He not only made it back, he helped put the Detroit Tigers in the World Series for the first time since 1984 and won the ALCS Most Valuable Player award.

Polanco had three hits, including a ninth-inning single two pitches ahead of Magglio Ordonez’s pennant-winning homer that gave Detroit a 6-3 win over the Oakland Athletics on and a four-game sweep.

Polanco was selected MVP after hitting .529 (9 for 17) in the four games and extending his postseason hitting streak to nine games – dating back to 2001 with St. Louis.

Polanco separated his left shoulder on Aug. 15 at Boston and Detroit skidded down the stretch in his absence. He returned Sept. 22 – shortly after saying he was out for the year – and helped the Tigers finish well enough to secure a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 1987.

La Russa defends Pujols

Angry that Albert Pujols was criticized for saying Tom Glavine “wasn’t good, he wasn’t good at all” after the left-hander pitched shutout ball for seven innings in the opener, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa got into a journalism discussion prior to Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.

“It’s very irritating to me because I know Albert is classy, professional, respects the game, respects people in it,” La Russa said.

“I don’t want to see Albert Pujols misrepresented. If this happens a couple of times, I’ll tell him, ‘Make yourself unavailable,’ and that happened a couple of times, and he got ripped because he wasn’t around to answer questions. For me, let his actions speak better than his words.”