God, Felipe Alou, and KNBR's value

I don't generally sympathize with sports talk show hosts on the radio. The format leads to lots of ignorant screetching from both sides of the microphone/telephone receiver.

But this KNBR stuff is getting ridiculous.

Details of the sackings remain sketchy. But it appears Krueger -- whose reference to the Giants' "brain-dead Caribbean hitters" Aug. 3 triggered the chain of events that led to the firings -- indeed was set to return to KNBR from a suspension next week.

That changed early Tuesday morning after Rhein played cuts from Comedy Central's "South Park" and "Saturday Night Live's" Church Lady that mentioned Satan. They ran soon after a sound bite from Giants manager Felipe Alou calling Krueger "this messenger of Satan" on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" Monday night.

Because the Krueger-Alou saga had mushroomed into a national story, and because the Susquehanna Radio Corp., which owns KNBR, has put all its stations on the market, KNBR senior vice president Tony Salvadore apparently believed he had to take swift action Tuesday.

As Gary Radnich put it early in his KNBR midmorning show Wednesday, "One more log on the fire with a big, million-dollar corporation like this, you're talking FCC licenses, you're talking about a lot of repercussions."

Krueger said something stupid, and the station was right to suspend him, though, tellingly, it took them three days to do it. He could have said simply, "the Giants' brain-dead hitters." Or "Alou's hitters are brain-dead and why isn't he doing something about it?" Any number of variations. But he did not say, "Caribean hitters are brain-dead," which would have been a firing expense and is what the Giants manager has been trying to infer Krueger said or meant. As the Giants sink into oblivion in the worst division in baseball, Alou has flogged this story beyond all recognition. He could have accepted the proffered apology, or not but say he's moving on. Instead he launched a campaign to take the center of attention away from his team and his managing.

And then, when he finally succeeds in getting the guy fired, the crocodile tears flow.

"I think it is very unfortunate that a man, or a number of men, had to lose their jobs over a thing like this. It was not my objective. My objective has always been for people to understand this is a social issue, and to make people aware that this is not to be tolerated, to degrade a race of people or people from a region."

Alou said he awoke at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday and had a feeling that maybe he should defuse the issue, but then he was told about the Tuesday morning-show incident and changed his mind.

Oh, please. He went on national TV to say how "upset" he was." And so was God, according to Alou.

"God does not allow anyone to make fun of his children or laugh at his children. God won't tolerate that," Alou said. "It's ridiculous that all of this was brought about by those guys. I didn't start this. He did. Anybody who wants to repent after making a statement like that has to understand that payback is going to come sooner or later."

In this case payback came sooner, helped along by Felipe Alou.

Alou, who dropped his KNBR pregame show after Krueger's "brain-dead" comments became widely known, did not appear on Wednesday's pregame show.

God didn't tolerate it by not having the manager appear on the pre-game show. He is a vengeful God and His Hand is Awful to Behold.

But the firing of Rhein is even more brain-dead, and shouting "FCC, ooh the FCC," when a sports radio host -- who gets paid to be controversial -- makes fun of the ramblings of an incompetent manager is a gutless act by the station. I mean, Alou calls someone "this messenger of Satan" on national TV and the guy who points out how crazy and whacked that is gets fired?