MLB Giants Flagship Station/Fired Radio Announcer

[ls317]

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Giants' flagship radio station fired controversial talk-show host Larry Krueger and two station officials Tuesday night, six days after Krueger made racially tinged criticisms of the club and manager Felipe Alou.

Tony Salvadore, KNBR's vice president and general manager, announced the firings of Krueger, program manager Bob Agnew and KNBR Morning Show producer Tony Rhein in a brief statement.

Salvadore said the firings were related to "inappropriate comedy sound bytes" played Tuesday morning during a discussion of Alou's recent interview with ESPN in which he roundly criticized KNBR and Krueger, who was suspended last Friday.


http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2130288

[montana_hazeleyes]

1. The Giants

are doing crappy because Barry is not there in my opinion.

I don't llike what Krueger said but I don't know about the firings. I wish I knew what the comedy sound bytes contained-didn't hear them.

[DinahMoeHum]

2. According to Salon, Kreuger had it coming to him for some time.

Link:(need day pass if not a subscriber)
http://www.salon.com/news/sports/2005/08/10/krueger/index.html

(snip)
I know I'm not the only one enjoying the suffering of KNBR's Larry Krueger, the talk-show loudmouth who last week blamed the San Francisco Giants' grim season on what he apparently sees as the team's not-too-smart Latin contingent -- specifically, its "brain-dead Caribbean hitters" and its 70-year-old "Cream of Wheat"-brained manager Felipe Alou. Krueger's troubles couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. The radio host has a history of finding coded ways to call nonwhite sports stars dumb. This time he slipped and got caught. After defending Krueger, KNBR management fired him and two station executives late Tuesday night.
(snip)
I'm enjoying Krueger's karma and Magowan's latest headache partly because I'm a Dusty Baker fan, but mostly because I think Krueger represents one of the ickiest elements in sports fandom and sports journalism -- angry loudmouths who don't love their sports gods but instead love to hate them. It's the brotherhood of resentful folks who pay outrageous prices for game tickets and authentic jerseys and all the trappings of fandom, blaming greedy stars for the excess and never looking at team management, allied with the brotherhood of certain ink-stained, microphone-hoarse wretches who have to grovel to sports stars to get stories and who exact payment for the humiliation with what they write and broadcast.

Together, they make themselves sick resenting the overpaid, under-mannered, spoiled jocks who have everything -- money, women, fame -- while they themselves have to sit in offices or trucks or cramped radio booths, or hunched over laptops, in order to feed their families ... yada, yada, yada.

The best sports journalists and commentators -- Roger Angell, Buster Olney, the Chronicle's Bruce Jenkins; broadcasters like the Dodgers' Vin Scully or the Giants' Jon Miller -- bring knowledge and understanding, real love, and even art to their work. That's why the Baseball Hall of Fame honors writers and broadcasters.
(snip)

much more...

:evilfrown

[AllieB]

3. Now if only my local sports talk station would fire the racist homphobes

during the morning drive time. Prior to the election, I got to hear Kerry-bashing along with my sports scores. It was very annoying.

[ls317]

4. What show are you talking about

???????

[AllieB]

5. WEEI-AM 850 Dennis & Callahan show

in the Boston metro area.

[ls317]

6. Isnt that Fox Sports Radio????

You might want to look at getting an XM radio,they have ESPN and Fox Sports Radio

[AllieB]

7. No it's ESPN radio

they carry ESPN broadcasts and local Red Sox games.

[tiptoe]

8. Bob Agnew: "Negativity is good"

Program Manager Agnew was so quoted in an article in the SF Chronicle...early '90s IIRC (Sorry, don't have the citation.)

Many of the radio hosts on KNBR under Agnew and Salvadore were of the "provocative" "in-your-face" confrontational type, e.g. Pete Franklin, who shrilly screamed at, personally berated and often "toilet-flushed off the air" callers whose invited opinions he didn't care for. "Nice guys" like local sportswriter Dave Newhouse were replaced when Agnew came along.

I stopped listening to KNBR -- Rick Barry excluded -- after tiring of Ralph Barbieri's whiny tone, grating voice and limp, tedious "sports commentary." (I've also stopped watching cable TV for "news", preferring information, commentary and variety from the actually-up-to-the-minute Internet, rather than the powder-puff, lapdog "news reporters" on corporatist-propaganda-TV.)

Barbieri and Franklin (long gone) are examples of a "negativity is good" style of hosting. And Barbieri would be much less tolerable than he is now, were it not for the saving graciousness and color of added-partner Tom Tolbert.

I don't know much about Krueger, but I appreciate Alou coming down and speaking out on his cynical, unreflected, sloppy comments that were inspired, in all likelihood, from an attempt to "draw audience interest" using the negativity technique rather than made from any direct racist intent.

While I didn't catch Tuesday morning's apparently-bad-taste "comedy bit", nevertheless I suspect Bob Agnew's firing was less for having a "sacrificial lamb" -- as Radnich suggested -- and more for demonstrating an actual substantive rejection of the negativity-is-good philosophy that may have underpinned Krueger's comments...as well as those of many other KNBR hosts over the years.

Alou: 'I feel bad about people being fired'

[KitchenWitch]

9. It is about time!

Racist content has no place on our media.