SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants manager Felipe Alou called a one-week suspension given to a radio host for making racial remarks about the team's Latino players "a slap on the hand" and said he wouldn't accept an apology from Larry Krueger.
"He came to apologize to me? You have to be kidding me," Alou
said Saturday, one day after the suspension. "There's no way to
apologize for such a sin."
Alou said he wasn't in position to accept an apology on behalf of the "hundreds of millions" of people offended earlier this week when Krueger went on the Giants' flagship station, KNBR, and went off about the struggling club and its "brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly."
"All of these people have been offended by this idiot," Alou
said. "I can't speak for hundreds of millions of people. This guy
offended hundreds of millions of people."
KNBR program director Bob Agnew said all comments on the subject would come from Tony Salvadore, the station's senior vice president. Salvadore did not immediately return a message left on his cell phone seeking comment. KNBR owns approximately 1.5 percent of the team.
Krueger, who apologized on the air Thursday and offered to apologize to the team, will not be on the radio again until Aug. 15. In his comments after Wednesday night's game he also criticized Alou, saying "you have a manager in Felipe whose mind has turned to Cream of Wheat."
"It's a slap on the hand," Alou said, slapping his own hand
for emphasis. "He could come back with something else in a week."
Alou also said he would no longer do his pregame radio spot with
the station.
"My voice and the voices of others can't be coming out of the
same wave," Alou said. "No way. I am a man of principle. I always
have been and always will be."
The anger from the Giants organization and players did not die down a day after the controversy became public. Because Krueger is a talk-show host and not an announcer, the Giants have no control over his punishment.
Omar Vizquel compared the talk-show host's remarks to those made by former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, who in a 1999 interview with Sports Illustrated bashed gays, minorities and foreigners.
The 70-year-old Alou, who faced racism as a black Dominican minor leaguer in the South nearly five decades ago, warned his Latino players to be "on guard" for racist remarks.
Moises Alou, the son of the manager and an outfielder for the Giants, called it an "ugly incident" and said unfair treatment of Latino players by the media was not new.
"It's been going on a long time," he said. "They blame steroids on Mexico and the Dominican Republic. I guarantee you can get steroids in the United States, too."
Moises Alou said much of the problem stems from the fact that Latino players are thought of as "dumb" because of the language barrier they face.
"Just because you don't speak English when you first come to this country, that doesn't mean you're stupid," he said.
The Giants, who have struggled most of the season, have won
three straight games since Krueger made his comments. But Alou and
the players dismiss any idea that the controversy has motivated
them.
"I don't really think players care too much about what a guy
says on the radio or what people write," first baseman J.T. Snow
said. "Our job is to go on the field and play."