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A bad experience covering an NCAA baseball regional at Louisiana-Lafayette's M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field has apparently cost one Mississippi sports writer his job. (StadiumsUSA.com)

The "cozy" baseball facilities at Louisiana-Lafayette's M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field have been a topic of discussion since last week, when the Ragin' Cajuns hosted an NCAA regional in which Mississippi State also played.

Now, it appears that comments about the city of Lafayette and its people in general have cost one Mississippi reporter his job.

Matthew Stevens, Mississippi State beat writer for the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, reported via Twitter on Monday that he was fired from his position. Among other things, Stevens called Lafayette the "worst place in America" during an appearance last Wednesday on the Bulldog Sports Radio internet show.

Lafayette-based KPEL 96.5 FM posted a link to the audio of Stevens' 6-minute rant on YouTube, and the response was overwhelming. Stevens was pilloried on Twitter by ULL fans, and later apologized both on Twitter and in a story published by the Lafayette Advertiser newspaper.

Louisiana-Lafayette is one of the top baseball teams in the country this year, carrying a 58-8 record into tonight's Super Regional Game 3 against Ole Miss. But the Ragin' Cajuns' home field is smaller than those of other major programs, with a capacity of a little over 3,000 (as opposed to upwards of 10,000 at Mississippi State's Dudy Noble Field).

The cramped conditions drew the ire of several members of their MSU press corps, who made their feelings known in another story published by the Lafayette Advertiser. Stevens was also quoted in that story, but it was his radio comments that got him in hot water.

Stevens said that he drove around Lafayette for nearly 90 minutes one day, and was unable to find a neighborhood where he would be comfortable buying a home and raising a family.

He was also openly critical of the Lafayette populace, which is made up largely of descendants of immigrants from French-speaking portions of Canada. The ULL athletic teams taking their name from those Acadians, commonly referred to as Cajuns.

"I'm not going to go as far as to say that they're not people," Stevens said during the radio show. "But I don't know what they are because they don't speak English -- and it's not French -- but I don't know what it is."

Added co-host Brian Hadad, "They're the missing link -- if you believe in evolution -- between apes and humans, there's Cajuns."

To his credit, Stevens immediately and profusely apologized. He also granted interviews to KPEL and the Lafayette Advertiser in hopes of clearing the air.

"I did have a bad experience in Lafayette, but whatever kind of experience I had in Lafayette does not give me the right to say what was said in my radio program Wednesday," Stevens told the Advertiser. "I obviously hurt and offended and angered a lot of people, and I take full responsibility for that. That's on me, and I can't take it back."

But that was apparently not enough for Stevens' employers. He again apologized for his comments on Monday.