THE WEEKEND IN SPORTS

This weekend, Fox fired sportscaster Steve Lyons for making insensitive comments about Hispanics. When another broadcaster spoke in Spanish, Lyons joked that he was scared of getting robbed. I wish Fox had acted as quickly to fire Lyons two years ago (he was only suspended for a short time) for making light of Shawn Green’s decision, when he was with the Dodgers, not to play on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

“He’s not a practicing Jew,” Lyons said. “He didn’t marry a Jewish girl.” He added, “And from what I understand, he never had a bar mitzvah, which is unfortunate because he didn’t get the money.

On a tangential not, you may recall how a few years ago, (Seoul 1988, Sydney 2000) the Olympics where scheduled to occur during the High Holidays. Jewish athletes were confronted with the decision to compete or forfeit. Now comes word that the 2012 Olympics have been scheduled to occure during Ramadan. Will Muslim athletes be forced to make a similar decision? It should be interesting to see if the IOC decides to move the date of the Olympics.