Kansas City has continued to be a place where baseball announcers go to lose their careers. Now former Oakland A’s broadcaster Glen Kuiper is the most recent bearer of the curse.
Kuiper had an unfortunate slip of the tongue when referring to the Negro League Baseball Museum on May 5, accidently using a racial slur during the pregame show. It was something that went unnoticed through the editing process and on into the broadcast. In fact, until Kuiper apologized in the sixth inning, few people even realized what had happened.
Oakland A’s had no other choice with Glen Kuiper
Kuiper was understandably suspended after the game. The A’s had also announced that they would be conducting an investigation into the incident before making a final determination as to his fate. That hammer came down on Monday as the A’s announced that they were firing their longtime broadcaster.
It is fair to wonder what happened. The pregame shows are taped, giving an editor time to notice that slip and have the broadcasters redo the segment. It is possible they did not notice anything wrong with his awkward pronunciation at the time. For his part, museum president Bob Kendrick felt that Kuiper just had an awkward moment when speaking about the museum. In fact, he remarked how excited Kuiper was to be there for the tour that day.
But intent does not matter. The facts of the case are that Kuiper said what he said and it was broadcast during the pregame show. The A’s have had numerous self-inflicted PR issues over the past two seasons. They could not afford to give Kuiper a pass at this point.
The Oakland A’s have decided to let Glen Kuiper go after their investigation into his remarks. They did not have any other choice in the matter.
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