Baseball Announcer Fired for On-Air Racial Slur

NBC Sports California fired Oakland Athletics announcer Glen Kuiper after he used a racial slur on a broadcast while describing his trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Kuiper, let go on Monday, was initially suspended by the network after backlash came his way for mispronouncing the word “Negro” during a pregame segment of a May 5 A’s game against the Kansas City Royals.

“Following an internal review, the decision has been made for NBC Sports California to end its relationship with Glen Kuiper, effective immediately,” NBC told The Associated Press. “We thank Glen for his dedication to Bay Area baseball over the years.”

An anonymous source told AP that “the decision was based on a variety of factors, including information uncovered in the internal review.”

It comes after Kuiper apologized for his comments before the sixth inning of the same A’s game against the Royals, acknowledging that “a little bit earlier in the show, I said something that didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to.”

He later issued another apology through a formal statement.

“I could not be more sorry and horrified by what I said. I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies,” Kuiper said after he was suspended by the network.

A’s manager Mark Kotsay claimed that the team did not decide upon Kuiper’s termination and that he sympathized with the announcer, who had been a part of the A’s broadcast crew for 20 years.

“I can’t imagine being in his shoes right now,” Kotsay shared. “I think personally, we missed an opportunity here maybe to use this as an educational platform. But as you said, I don’t make decisions, and this isn’t a decision I was involved in and nor was the organization really. This was a decision made by NBC.”