Glen Kuiper is poised to resume his role announcing Major League Baseball matchups.
The erstwhile Oakland Athletics commentator, whose employment ended in 2023 following an on-air utterance of a racial epithet, is slated to join the San Francisco Giants’ radio broadcast team for their exhibition contest against Team USA this coming Tuesday, as reported by Susan Slusser from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kuiper, who is the sibling of veteran Giants announcer Duane Kuiper, could also make appearances during the Giants’ regular-season radio transmissions, the Chronicle further indicated.
The event leading to the conclusion of Kuiper’s tenure with the A’s occurred during a pre-game segment on May 5, 2023. At that time, Kuiper was enthusiastically recounting his visit to the Negro League Museum situated in Kansas City. Nevertheless, he apparently fumbled the pronunciation of the term “Negro,” resulting in the delivery of a racial insult. He has consistently maintained that the occurrence was unintentional.
Kuiper, who served as the primary play-by-play voice for the A’s beginning in 2006, faced an indefinite suspension the following day and was terminated from his position a fortnight subsequent. As per the Chronicle, an inquiry conducted by NBC Sports Bay Area additionally brought to light a comparable occurrence in August 2020, during which Kuiper referenced Negro League athletes while addressing inanimate cardboard spectator figures.
Kuiper has expressed remorse for the event on several occasions, notably within his statement reacting to his dismissal. In that identical declaration, he articulated, “I will forever struggle to comprehend how a solitary error within a two-decade-long broadcasting profession warrants termination, yet I am confident that a more positive path lies ahead for me.”
In the period since, Kuiper has remained active around the periphery of Bay Area baseball, co-hosting programs at Oracle Park’s Gotham Club alongside his brother subsequent to Giants’ home matchups last year, and offering coverage of the Giants through his YouTube channel and podcast, titled “The Glen Kuiper Show.”
