Glen Kuiper to call SF Giants spring training game 3 years after on-air slur led to A’s firing

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Glen Kuiper, the former Oakland A’s broadcaster who was fired after using a racial slur during a live television broadcast in 2023, will return to the air to handle radio play-by-play for the Giants’ exhibition game against Team USA on Tuesday.

The team confirmed the news Wednesday night after a San Francisco Chronicle report.

Kuiper, 60, said a racial epithet on May 5, 2023 during the A’s pregame show while discussing a trip he and broadcast partner Dallas Braden had taken earlier that day to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Kuiper appeared to replace the first word with the racial slur. NBC Sports Bay Area suspended Kuiper following the incident, then fired him later that month.

Kuiper was in his 20th season of calling A’s games and is the younger brother of longtime Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, as well as TV producer Jeff Kuiper. He apologized during the later innings of the 2023 broadcast, saying in part that he said something that “didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to. And I just wanted to apologize if it sounded different than I meant it to be said.”

After he was fired, Kuiper issued a statement saying the use of the word was “unintentional,” terming it a “terrible but honest mispronunciation . . . I wish the Oakland A’s and NBC Sports would have taken into consideration my 20-year career, my solid reputation, integrity and character, but in this current environment traits like integrity and character are no longer considered.”

Kuiper had worked in Bay Area broadcasting since the late 1980s. He currently hosts The Glen Kuiper Show on YouTube.

Similar to when the on-air incident happened in 2023, news of Kuiper’s return was a hot topic Wednesday night on social media, eliciting strong opinions both in defense of Kuiper as well as calling for his dismissal.

Among Kuiper’s supporters in 2023 were Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick — who at the time told the Bay Area News Group that he was disappointed to see Kuiper fired — and former A’s pitcher Dave Stewart, who tweeted support of Kuiper.

“He showed and demonstrated his remorse for something that he felt like was a word he had never used before,” Kendrick said in 2023. “Again, I have to take him at his word. And I’m really disappointed by the news. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I know how much pressure is put on when things like this happen.”

Kuiper began working on A’s broadcasts in 2004 as a fill-in announcer and on-field correspondent. He took over as the team’s lead play-by-play television broadcaster in 2006.