Before leaving for vacation on Thursday, AA wrote:
While I’m away I’m sure Chris Berman will curse on air, Tiger Woods will shoot a 50 at the Masters, and John Kruk will have a nip slip on Baseball Tonight…..
Close, boss, but not quite.
No, the first story I, your faithful weekend presence, gets to deal with in his triumphant return to Awful Announcing (hi, by the way) is that old standby: racial slurs! Wheeeeee!
The story comes from Michael David Smith at The FanHouse. Rather than simply restating the facts, let’s let him tell it:
During today’s Masters broadcast, CBS announcer Bobby Clampett referred to Chinese golfer Liang Wen-Chong as “the chinaman.”
According to CBS spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade, Clampett later apologized on the Masters webcast.
Clampett has been working Amen Corner the last two days, and his commentary can be heard both online and on DirecTV. He used the “chinaman” slur while describing Liang’s round and explaining that he will not make the cut.
Oh, Bobby. That ain’t cool, no matter what the commenters on Smith’s post have to say about it. (Seriously, read the first two. Ah-may-zing stuff right there.) There are certain words that those of us who live in the 21st century no longer use; this is certainly one of them.
At least he was mindful enough of his slipup to issue an apology…sort of:
“It has been a privilege to be here with you the last 2 days describing action of all of the players. In describing the Asian player Wen-Chong Liang if I offended anybody please accept me sincere apologies.”
I like to call this the Hardaway Method of apologizing: “I’m still not sure I said anything wrong, but if I did, I’m sorry for saying whichever part offended you.” As Smith notes, “This style of apology…always rings a bit hollow.”
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