Oakland A’s Condemn On-Air Racial Slur | Announcer Suspended Indefinitely

by | May 6, 2023 | 5TH SLOT

The Oakland A’s have denounced a remark made by their longtime announcer, Glen Kuiper, and indefinitely suspended him after he used a racial slur on the air. During the pregame broadcast of their 12-8 win at Kansas City on Friday, Kuiper was describing the city and said that he went to the “N***** League Museum” in what many are calling a slip of the tongue.

The A’s are not calling it that. In fact, they called it “unacceptable” in a statement put out by the team shortly after the game last night.

Today, a team spokesperson said that Kuiper will be off the air until a review of Friday’s incident is completed. As shocking as it is to see a baseball team speak out against its own announcer in such a public way, it’s even more shocking to watch a game and hear him use language like this.

Before the start of the sixth inning, Kuiper apologized on the air which sent some people running to their remote control’s rewind button to figure out what he had said. But, apparently enough people had caught his words in real time for him to have to address it.

Kuiper came back from commercial with this: “Welcome back to Kauffman Stadium. I just want to… a little earlier in the show, I said something, didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to,” Kuiper said. “And I just wanted to apologize if it sounded different than I meant it to be said. And like I said, I just wanted to apologize for that.”

This incident is very reminiscent of the Reds announcer, Thom Brennaman situation from 2020, in which he was caught on a hot mic using a homophobic slur. He was taken off the air mid-broadcast and has not called a game since. That was three years ago.

Baseball set a precedent with that situation. Let’s see what happens here.

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