LYONS' REMARKS NOT FOX-Y.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

You can take the man out of the clubhouse, but you can't take the clubhouse out of the man.

So Steve Lyons is an ex-broadcaster all of a sudden, and the surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Lyons' loose talk to Lou Piniella during the Oakland Athletics-Detroit Tigers game Friday could have been funny in the frat-row atmosphere of the clubhouses of his fourmajor-league teams during a nine-year playing career that began way back when the name Al Campanis stood for nothing except winning baseball.

But what Lyons said is unacceptable on national television at a time when people are properly sensitive to ethnic insults.

Thus Lyons was fired from his baseball-analyst job by Fox Sports late Friday for what a network spokesman called ``inappropriate'' comments, and his color-man job with the Dodgers was in jeopardy Saturday. He'd

been with Fox for 11 years and was at the end of a three-year contract, and has been with the Dodgers for two with a year left on a two-year deal.

His chair next to Piniella and Thom Brennaman in the booth for the Tigers' pennant-clinching victory over the A's in Detroit on Saturday was taken by Angels announcer Jose Mota.

On the phone Saturday night after having his firing confirmed in an L.A. meeting with Fox chairman David Hill and president Ed Goren, Lyons apologized ``if anybody was offended.'' Lyons also denied he was referring to Piniella's Hispanic heritage when he jokingly implied that his fellow analyst had stolen his wallet. Lyons insisted he was playing off a Piniella remark that made an analogy to finding a wallet.

But if you hear it or read it, Lyons' joke sounds terrible.

Piniella had just said Frank Thomas needed to get ``en fuego'' (hot) again for the A's.

Lyons said: ``Lou's habla-ing some EspaNol there, and I'm still looking for my wallet. I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit close to him now.''

At the time, Lyons, Piniella and Brennaman laughed.

``It (the comment) cost me my career,'' Lyons said the next day. ``It (the firing) seems a little harsh. ... I'm stunned. I think everyone that works with me is stunned. I think anybody who knows me realizes I don't have a racist bone in my body. I have a biracial grandson (the son of his daughter).''

You have to admire ex-jock sportscasters for the verbal filters that protect them from repeating on the air the profanities, bawdy stories and bullying insults that are second nature to people who have spent their adult lives in the closed world of clubhouses and locker rooms.

Steve Lyons has a faulty filter.

``Obviously, my sense of humor has gotten me in trouble,'' Lyons said.

``It's how I do a game. That's why they hired me.''

On the foot-in-mouth scoreboard, this was Lyons' third strike.

Two years ago, he was suspended without pay by Fox for showing ``poor judgment'' in his comments about then-Dodger Shawn Green's decision to sit out a game on Yom Kippur.

Lyons said of Green: ``He's not a practicing Jew. He didn't marry a Jewish girl. And from what I understand, he never had a bar mitzvah, which is unfortunate because he didn't get the money.''

During the Dodgers-Mets playoff series this month, Brennaman apologized to viewers after he and Lyons made fun of a Shea Stadium fan who was wearing special glasses. The fan turned out to be wearing magnifying glasses because he is nearly blind.

(For what it's worth, this puts Lyons in a league with President Bush. In June, Bush apologized after joking about a reporter's ``shades look'' during a White House Rose Garden press conference. The reporter wore sunglasses because of an eye condition that left him legally blind.)

And then the latest incident, Friday afternoon on Fox (Channel 11 in Los Angeles).

Lyons, 46, known as ``Psycho'' when he played the outfield and infield for Boston, the Chicago White Sox, Atlanta and Montreal from 1985-1993, was working alongside Piniella, the old New York Yankees outfielder and long-time manager, and play-by-play man Brennaman.

Piniella said the A's expecting shortstop Marco Scutaro to continue his first-round hot hitting would be ``like finding a wallet on a Friday night and looking for one on Sunday and Monday, too.''

It was four minutes later when Piniella used ``en fuego'' and ``frio'' in talking about Thomas. Brennaman noted that Piniella is bilingual.

Piniella is a Tampa, Fla., native and resident. His family is from Spain.

Lyons then uttered the sentence that, whether he intended this or not, connected the word ``EspaIllegal 'X-value' for character STYLs voided here ol'' and the joke about the wallet.

Lyons said he tried to explain to Fox executives: ``The key to the comment was, `He stole my wallet,' not, `He's Hispanic and he stole my wallet.' If anybody thinks (the latter), that's a stretch.

``Usually, in this business, when you say something (wrong), you know right away. I had no idea.''

But Lyons acknowledged his filter had let him down. This was the player who once absentmindedly pulled his pants down on the field to brush away dirt after a slide.

``That's something I'm not really good at,'' he said of holding his tongue.

``I'm an off-the-cuff guy. I always lean toward humor. But I know the rules (against insensitive language).''

Camille Johnston, the Dodgers' senior vice president for communications, said Saturday that Lyons' status with the club is ``under review.''

Dodgers executives apparently want to speak with Lyons face-to-face before making a decision, which could come Monday.

The decision, though, is likely to be dictated by Dodgers history. The franchise flaunts its progressive record on race and ethnicity, from signing Jackie Robinson, the first black major-leaguer of the modern era, in 1947; to firing Campanis, the general manager who drew fire for his 1987 comments on minorities' executive potential; to its early, aggressive scouting in the Caribbean and Asia.

The people running the Dodgers have changed. Yet the company is unlikely to look kindly on a representative who, on subjects from ethnicity to religion, keeps tripping over the line between the clubhouse and polite society.

The New York Times and Associated Press contributed

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CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 3 boxes

Photo:

(1) TOM GLAVINE

(2) MILTON BRADLEY

(3) STEPHEN JACKSON

(4) Steve Lyons, left, won't be doing any more interviews for Fox. He was fired for on-air remarks.

Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

Box:

(1) sunday punch

(2) HOT ... LUKEWARM ... COLD FISH

(3) FANTASY FOOTBALL

- Matthew Kredell