A basketball announcer has issued an apology for seemingly uttering the N-word while on air.
Glen Alan Kuiper, a broadcaster for the Oakland Athletics Major League Baseball team, appeared to say the racial slur while calling the Kansas City Royals game on Friday night, local news station KRON 4 reports. Mr Kuiper, the primary announcer on NBC Sports California, has since said that his words “didn’t come out the way [he] wanted to.”
“We had a phenomenal day today. N***** League Museum and Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque,” Mr Kuiper said about his visit to the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
The veteran announcer went on to apologise for the gaffe while still on air hours later.
“A little bit earlier in the show, I said something that didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to,” Mr Kuiper said right before the start of the sixth inning. “And I just wanted to apologise if it sounded different than I meant it to be said. I just wanted to apologise for that.”
The Oakland Athletics decried the blunder, branding it “unacceptable.”
“The language used by Glen Kuiper during [the] pregame broadcast is unacceptable,” the team’s communication department said in a statement. “The Oakland Athletics do not condone such language. We are working to address the situation.”
Kuiper has announced the Oakland Athletics on NBC for nearly two decades, according to KRON 4.
According to the Negro League Baseball Museum, the exhibit “highlight[s] the obstacles players of color faced, what they did to overcome the challenges of prejudice and social injustice in this country and how their talent, passion and perseverance changed Major League Baseball and America.”
The Independent has reached out to the museum for comment.
