The Dodgers were playing a game in Houston in late April this season, and on the FSN Prime Ticket telcast, the camera caught a shot of former President George Bush giving his wife, Barbara, a smooch while on the "Kiss-Cam."
"Insert your own ad-lib here," said Dodgers play-by-play man Charley Steiner.
Short pause.
"Naw, I wanna keep my job," replied analyst Steve Lyons.
That was probably the last smartest thing he's ever said.

The latest from the Dodgers is that Lyons will keep his job. But only after some diversity training and double-secret probation guidelines, after this mess he created last weekend by getting fired from Fox for making an inane comment about Mexicans and wallets that made as much sense as the network actually canning him for it. Lyons will explain himself more later today on "The Big Show" on KSPN-AM (710), with Steve Mason and John Ireland in the 3 p.m. hour.

We'd be lying if we said we thought Lyons would have made it through this baseball season as a broadcaster without stumbling over his own walnut-sized brain. It was only a matter of time, based on his history of inane comments. Perhaps it's supposed to be part of this "Psycho" charm that he perpetuates, and a "Fox attitude" that the network seemingly has embraced, but in the end, it will be the downfall of his broadcasting career, if that's what you want to call what he's been doing the last decade.

Granted, this very misconstrued and mangled conversation he had with Lou Pinella in the booth during Fox's coverage of the ALCS Game 3 on Friday night doesn't seem to be enough cause to fire him -- another suspension, maybe. But you'd really have to be looking for an excuse to fire him to do so after something like this.
That said, considering we had the over/under on Lyons offending someone on the air this season at May 31 (including his on-air appearances doing Dodgers games for FSN Prime Ticket), we can only say we're just surprised this didn't happen sooner.

I'll admit, I listened to this game on radio and didn't see it on TV, nor did I TiVo it, but transcripts of what was said are all over the place. Even if you read it somewhat out of context, it still makes no sense -- which is par for the Lyons course.
Only this time, someone in the Fox hierachy took it to mean something about Hispanics and stealing wallets. That non-P.C. interpretation is what cost Lyons in the end, another naive, non-racist about his "habla-ing" comment. But add that to Lyons making an insensative remark about a blind fan's large glasses on a telecast a week ago, or about Shawn Green's Jewish heritage on a telecast two years ago (which drew a suspension -- and the game he missed and was replaced by Eric Karros was the day Steve Finley hit the grand slam to put the Dodgers into the playoffs over San Francisco), and Lyons' resume doesn't get any stronger season by season.

Lyons isn't a racist. He's an idiot. He proves that year after year.
Last season, it was a comment he made during a Dodgers broadcast when he said Joe Buck was the best baseball play-by-play man today -- conveniently overlooking Vin Scully, which Steiner tried to save him on and point that out to him. Before that, when he was working as a FSN anchor (for some reason), he did a line about a story on both Pat Riley and Steve Lavin, saying they had so much jell in their hair they'd make Richard Simmons straight -- or something to that affect.

For those reasons alone, he shouldn't be doing live broadcasts, and the Dodgers have to know this continues to be another accident waiting to happen should they invite him back for the 2007 season. There are plenty of smart, talented baseball analysts willing to work who don't sound like they know it all and don't start each sentence with "When I played ..." and then go on to cross the line of stupidity.

But there's Fox, coming off saying that he was fired "for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate." Which makes about as much sense as anything else on Fox's programming schedule, especially when you consider all the nutjob news analysts claiming to be "fair and balanced" on the cable side.

What Lyons hasn't learned as a broacaster, he could have gleaned from working with Vin Scully on the 1999 movie "Love Of The Game," where he played Scully's broadcast partner watching Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) pitch his perfect game. According to a story Lyons told us long ago, Scully told him: Just let me do the call, and I'll bring you into the conversation.
That's the movies. In real life, Lyons couldn't get out of his own way.

In Monday's USA Today, Lyons tries to "defend his honor," according to the headline. His comments were misconstrued, and "it's my career we're talking about. I need to go find myself a job. That statement is going to follow me around. That's unfair."
That's a fair statement. But he's stuck his foot into his pie hole so many different ways, it's no wonder someone misinterpreted another lame joke.

Thankfully, he'll have plenty of time this offseason shake the dirt out of his pants on this one. Just as long as he doesn't do it in the middle of the street in full view of his neighbors.

Oh, and by the way...
The L.A. Times ran a correction today, related to its coverage of the Lyons story:
FOR THE RECORD:
Baseball: In Sunday's Sports section, an article on the firing of Fox commentator Steve Lyons misspelled Yom Kippur, Judaism's Day of Atonement, as Yom Kupper

Again, it's simple stupidity.