Lyons fired by Fox

Former Red Sox utilityman Steve Lyons was fired by Fox after he made what the network deemed insensitive racial remarks Friday during the telecast of Game 3 of the ALCS.

Lyons directed the remarks at Lou Piniella, who joined Lyons in the booth as color commentators alongside play-by-play man Thom Brennaman.

Lyons, 46, made reference to Piniella's Hispanic heritage in an inappropriate manner, according to network spokesman Dan Bell.

The network replaced Lyons, who also does color commentary for Los Angeles Dodgers telecasts, with Angels announcer Jose Mota for yesterday's telecast. ``Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," Bell said.

The comments came in the second inning when Piniella spoke about A's shortstop Marco Scutaro's success at the plate in the playoffs. Piniella went into an analysis of how Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to be more productive and compared Scutaro's production to finding a ``wallet on Friday" and hoping it would happen again the next week.

Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get ``en fuego" -- ``hot" in Spanish -- because he was currently ``frio" (``cold"). After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons chimed in that Piniella was ``hablaing Espanol" and added, ``I still can't find my wallet."

Lyons, who did four tours with the Red Sox in his nine-year career, added, ``I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now."

Lyons flew to Los Angeles, where he hoped to meet with Fox president and CEO David Hill. ``If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry," said Lyons, who was told by Fox executives after the game that he was fired. ``But my comment about Lou taking my wallet was a joke and in no way racially motivated."

On the day after Tony La Russa had the kind of touch his close friend Jim Leyland has enjoyed throughout the postseason -- his decisions to employ Scott Spiezio and So Taguchi leading directly to victory -- the Cardinals manager was asked if there's a fine line between being very smart or simply enjoying good fortune at this time of year.

La Russa has taken 12 teams to the postseason, including seven in 11 years with the Cardinals, but has won just one World Series and has lost four of the last five times the Cards have been in the NLCS.

``I think what you learn," he said, ``is that you're responsible to take your best shot and you just have to figure out what your best shot is. You can't sit there and try to figure out which shot is the one that draws the most compliments or the least criticism. It doesn't work that way.

``In the end, I don't care how much success you've had or lack of it, every move you make is judged by whether it works or not. If you use somebody to pinch hit, bunt, don't bunt, strategy doesn't work, there will be enough people to say, `Bad decision.' So why drive yourself nuts?"

Friday night, La Russa elected to start Spiezio at third base over Scott Rolen, who despite his sore left shoulder expressed surprise and disappointment that he wasn't in the lineup. Spiezio responded with a game-tying two-run triple in the seventh inning of the Cardinals' 9-6 win, narrowly missing a home run, then doubled home another run in the ninth.

La Russa's other big move paid off just as handsomely. Taguchi, whom La Russa had instructed to prepare to pinch hit in the eighth inning, instead went into the game as a defensive replacement in the bottom of the inning. Taguchi led off the ninth against Mets closer Billy Wagner and hit a tie-breaking home run. It was Taguchi's second home run in two at-bats in the postseason, matching his total number of home runs in 316 regular-season at-bats.

Taguchi was giddy afterward. ``I can't explain. I think it's unbelievable," Taguchi said. ``Who expected me to hit a home run? Nobody, not even me. What can I say?"

A's manager Ken Macha said after the sweep to the Tigers, ``I told the players they can't let this series diminish what they did this year. Just watching that game today, that's a tremendous baseball game. The guys played their tails off and that's all you can ask." . . . Before Macha left Comerica Park, he made one last stop in Oakland's empty clubhouse to see Thomas. ``It means something," Thomas said of Macha's words. ``I'm being honest, it helped turn my life around [being here]." . . . After suffering a separated shoulder in August at Fenway Park, there was concern whether Placido Polanco was going to be shut down for the year. But he took a cortisone shot and started feeling better. ``I was very, very concerned [about not making it back] because I knew that we had a shot at the playoffs and I didn't know if I was going to be able to play. You don't get that opportunity every year. I was very worried." . . . A's reliever Justin Duchscherer had three vertebrae adjusted after Friday's game that were contributing to his neck spasms and causing numbness in his throwing arm.

Nick Cafardo reported from Detroit, Gordon Edes from St. Louis; material from wire services was used in this report.