Bacsik fired for racially insensitive tweet

Updated: April 27, 2010, 7:56 PM ET
ESPN.com news services

Former major league pitcher Mike Bacsik was fired from his job as a Dallas sports radio producer/personality Tuesday, two days after he made a racially insensitive remark about "Mexicans in San Antonio" on Twitter.

Bacsik, a left-hander made famous by giving up Barry Bonds' 756th career home run, was fired by the station after his Twitter outburst, which came after Game 5 of the Dallas Mavericks-San Antonio Spurs series. Bacsik went on Twitter after the Mavericks' Eduardo Najera tackled Manu Ginobili and was ejected, saying "Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio."

"It's been a rough couple of days," Bacsik told ESPNDallas.com Tuesday. "Obviously, I made a terrible mistake. It was very bad and stupid on my part. The last few days, I've been getting positive e-mails. But the station changed their mind and decided to go in a different direction."

Bacsik had been appearing on radio station KTCK.

"When you tweet like I did, you can't see the sarcasm," he said. "It's not a good joke. You can't tell if it was pure hate or sarcasm. I never got to say anything. My tweets were talking for me. When you tweet like that, it's not a playful, harmless thing. It's not what it was meant to be."

Bacsik, who originally was suspended indefinitely by the station, said that when the tweet went on national television, including CNN, the station decided to let him go.

"If you want to do a job like this, your guard always has to be up," he said. "It's tough because my guard was down. I learned my lesson. I'm owning up to what I did. I did a horrible thing. I'm very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets."

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