A column about women's golf that the blogger said was written mostly tongue-in-cheek turned out to be more of a case of foot-in-mouth and has cost him his job at a Rochester, NY, radio station.
Craig Schaller, a producer and part-time talk show host at WHAM-AM for 16 years, was fired this week after including stereotypical comments about Asian players at this past weekend's LPGA Championship in Pittsford, a Rochester suburb.
“It's hard to remember specific golfers when half of them seem to have names that sound like the sound you get when you bang pots and pans together,” Schaller wrote.
The LPGA Championshp was won by Inbee Park, and fellow Korean players Jiyai Shin, Chella Choi, Amy Yang, Sun Young Yoo and Na Yeon Choi all finished in the top 10, as did China's Shanshan Feng.
“There are too many gosh darn foreigners on the tour and more specifically, I'm talking about Koreans and Asians in general,” Schaller wrote.
Schaller told WHEC-TV he may have failed in his attempts at humor but that he stands behind the premise that the dominance of Asian players is not good for the LPGA Tour.
"It waters down the product and it makes it less appealing to a lot of fans of the sport and the tour," he told the TV station.
Schaller has also been commenting on the incident in his Twitter feed throughout the week, offering some apologies but not exactly backing down from his stance:
LPGA Media Director Mike Scanlan issued a statement supporting the tour's foreign players.
"Golf is a borderless game and our Asian players are some of the LPGA's best ambassadors," he said. "We are proud to be golf's global tour and thankful to the fans throughout western New York who embrace our stars."
The radio station has removed the blog from its website.
Watch the WHEC-TV interview with Schaller below:
