Olbermann Legacy, The Next Generation

We all know Keith Olbermann obsesses about baseball. Countdown carries his name but much more important, provides financial wherewithal for those choice season seats in Yankee Stadiums, both old and new. Countdown allows him to rave at politicos and pundits gone wrong, but we sense he much rather holler at the doings of the Boys in Pinstripes.

You cannot take the sportscaster out of the sports fan. Thus, Keith not only makes calls for NBC football coverage during NFL season, but he now adds a regular baseball blog to his journalistic endeavours.

According to PR Newswire:

 

Major League Baseball, announced today that it has hired award-winning anchor, sportscaster and journalist Keith Olbermann as an at-large columnist. Olbermann’s columns, currently available three times per week at keitholbermann.mlblogs.com, will provide fans with his “Baseball Nerd” perspective of the game across various platforms. He also is the first national journalist hired as part of MLBAM’s digital newspaper initiative, currently scheduled for a May launch.

At his request, Olbermann’s full salary for his work as an at-large columnist will be split equally among three charitable organizations. They will be: the Baseball Assistance Team, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and the Jayden Braden/Ariana Marzano College Fund, established in support of the late John Marzano’s grandchildren. Marzano, a former Major Leaguer and MLB.com host, died just over one year ago in a home accident in Philadelphia.

“I’ve long respected MLB.com’s editorial independence and I’ll be delighted to test it,” said Olbermann. “Seriously, it’s an honor to be able to write about all the obscure things I love inside the game I love, and to help some worthy causes in the process, and to honor an old friend. Not to mention that it will be my politics-free oasis. Unless another cat jumps up at another Governor.”

Olbermann’s love of the game runs in his family. His late mother Marie Olbermann received MLB fame when she was conked on the noggin by a wild pitch. Keith related the story during his emotional tribute to his mom:

 

…on June 17th, 2000, when the sudden, and growing, inability of the ill-fortuned second baseman Chuck Knoblauch to make any kind of throw, easy or hard, to first base, culminated in him picking up a squib off the bat of Greg Norton of the White Sox and throwing it not back towards first, but, instead, off the roof of the Yankees’ dugout where it picked up a little reverse english and smacked my mother right in the bridge of her glasses.

Chuck was in the middle of losing his beloved father at that time and though I thought I “got” what that meant to him, I didn’t really understand it until today as I wrote this, and struggled to find the right keys, let alone the right words.

In any event, for three days in 2000, Mom was on one or both of the covers, of The New York Post and The New York Daily News and Newsday. She was somewhere in every newspaper in America.

With her passing a few weeks ago, the Olbermann family baseball fame flame extinguished — except for KO’s preeminent baseball card collection and a Chuck Knoblauch ball that may or may not have been bequeathed to him. 

Except a few nights ago, in a new Yankee stadium (the one George built) when the Olbermann baseball strike “out” family legend meet the next generation thanks to a helicoptering bat and KO’s 10-year-old nephew. As KO relates in his blog:

 

Hats off to Ben Erdel. As part of his big night at Yankee Stadium last night, Brett Gardner let one of his Louisville Sluggers fly into the stands. Mr. Erdel and a much younger gentleman both had their hands on the rare souvenir – although only the younger gentleman had just managed to avoid getting hit with the helicoptering bat. Mr. Erdel took the bat, took a few steps, and then thought better of it, and generously did the right thing.

The younger gentleman now has a singular thrill from his first Yankee homestand, exceeding his previous one – being my nephew.

Here is Nephew, Jacob Smith, far left, and his bat, which was not stolen by either Katy Tur or Maegen Carberry.

Keith invited the lucky and talented Jacob on Countdown yesterday to show off the bat and ask, as he did his mother about the Knoblauch ball, if he could acquire it for his personal collection. And young Smith, echoed the wise and numbing words of his Grammie, “You can bid on it on eBay like everybody else.”

Shout out to Ben Erdel (pictured below) for letting Jacob keep the bat.

However, whether a photo opp on Countdown really seems commensurate with that Louisville Slugger may depend on Erdel’s political and cable news predilections.

Congrats, Gene!

Gene Robinson, columnist for the Washington Post and Countdown regular, won the prestigious 2009  Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

 

Your OlberBlogging friends congratulate you, Gene!  Great job! You definitely deserve it.

Please check these links to read more about Gene’s honor: 

Washington Post

Editor & Publisher

Good Night, Marie

We members of the OlberBlogging Community send our thoughts and prayers to Keith and his family on the loss of his mother. 

No one could give a better tribute than Keith did on Monday night. If you would like to listen, please visit the Countdown site here.

We hope Keith doesn’t mind if we reprint his tribute from the Countdown transcript. We’ve also included some of the pictures Keith aired during the segment:

 

And finally, how does one tell this story?  My mother passed away Saturday night.  Our number one story on the COUNTDOWN, Marie Katherine (ph) Charbonier Olbermann, 1929-2009.  This remembrance is not going to be a medical story, although lord knows mom was the foremost authority on her own health.  Nor is it going to consist of me telling you that she was the proverbial saint, although I can hear her saying, go ahead.  I‘m not going to disagree with you.  Who is going to disagree with you?

It is not going to be a full biography.  Suffice to say, she was a gifted preschool teacher and a legendary authority on opera.  Somewhere, she is going to be genuinely disappointed that I did not get Placido Domingo to sing at the memorial service.  I thought instead it would be best to focus on something for which she became and remained pretty famous, literally until the day she died. 

My mother was one of the best-known baseball fans in this country.  She attended games of the New York Yankees from 1934 to 2004, and she watched or listened to every one she didn‘t go to up until last month.  My guess is she went to at least 1,500 of them, most of them in that seat right there, where the Fox cameras captured her late in the season of 2000. 

As recently as the 13th of last month, Jerry Manual, the manager of the New York Mets, came over to me on a field in Lakeland, Florida before an exhibition game and asked me how she was.  He was the fifth or sixth active baseball figure to have done so this year alone.  They have averaged at least one or two a month for nearly a decade now.  Saturday afternoon, not six hours before mom died, a New York Yankees executive made reference to that which had made mom famous in the ballparks, and trust me, mom loved being famous in the ballparks.  Even if it had to have been attained this way on June 17th, 2000. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  And these are the problems that have become well documented over the last few days.  Throwing it into the stands and ironically enough, the ball hit Keith Olbermann‘s mother right between the eyes.  She was all right.  The glasses were broken. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  Four days after her birthday, mom had found herself in the middle of one of the great melt downs in sports history, a sudden and growing inability of the ill-fortuned second baseman Chuck Knoblauch of the Yankees to make any kind of throw, easy or hard, to first base.  Chuck was in the middle of losing his beloved father at that time.  Though I thought I got what that meant to him then, I didn‘t really understand it at all until this afternoon as I wrote this, and I struggled to find the right keys, let alone the right words. 

For three days in 2000, mom was on one or both of the covers of the “New York Post” and the “New York Daily News” and “New York News Day.”  She was somewhere in every newspaper in America.  And all this happened while I was the host of the baseball game of the week for Fox.  Needless to say, I managed to get an interview with her for the pregame show the following Saturday, an exclusive interview.  Although don‘t think I didn‘t have to work for it. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

 

(Note: The only person who could make KO shut up on the air!)

 

OLBERMANN:  Joining us now for her first interview since the Knoblauch incident, my mom.  Are you OK? 

MARIE OLBERMANN, MOTHER OF KEITH OLBERMANN:  I‘m pretty good.  A little bruised, but OK. 

OLBERMANN:  Mom, you‘ve been going to games since—so long that you met Babe Ruth when you were a toddler.  Have you ever been near a foul ball or thrown ball before? 

M. OLBERMANN:  Not that close.  No, not really.  No. 

OLBERMANN:  And this was close enough? 

M. OLBERMANN:  Too close. 

OLBERMANN:  A lot of the pitchers are saying this year that the hitters are doing better because the ball is harder than it has been in the past.  Would you agree that it‘s harder than it has been in the past? 

M. OLBERMANN:  It‘s the hardest one I‘ve ever been hit with. 

OLBERMANN:  You went back to Yankee Stadium the next day.  Why? 

M. OLBERMANN:  To see the game. 

OLBERMANN:  Do you have any worry about Chuck, either as a Yankee fan or for your own safety? 

M. OLBERMANN:  Not really.  I sympathize with him. 

OLBERMANN:  Why do you sympathize with him? 

M. OLBERMANN:  Because I‘m a little awkward at times too. 

OLBERMANN:  But you‘re not playing second base with the Yankees, are you? 

M. OLBERMANN:  Not yet. 

OLBERMANN:  Have you been surprised by all the newspaper attention? 

M. OLBERMANN:  A little bit, but I want to know why they keep mentioning you. 

OLBERMANN:  Uh, OK.  What matters most, obviously, mom, is that you‘re all right.  But I‘ve got to ask you, in closing, it‘s no secret that I collect memorabilia.  Like I‘m telling you something you don‘t know.  You had to clean most of it up.  But can have the ball? 

M. OLBERMANN:  You can bid on it when I auction it off, just like everyone else. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Four million.  Thank you, sir. 

OLBERMANN:  My mother, everybody. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  My great thanks to my old boss, David Hill, at Fox Sports, for his kindness in letting us run that tonight. 

Anyway, for the rest of the year, any time Fox broadcast a game from Yankee Stadium, mom got on TV again.  We even talked about her during the World Series broadcast that fall, during which began this ritual that continues to this day, players, players who were at the game, players who only heard about the game, players asked me about my mom. 

Since the day it happened, I‘ve been told Chuck Knoblauch has been mortified by it.  Chuck, give yourself a break.  You made her famous.  She loved it.  She could not have been happier if they let her pinch-hit for you. 

A full circle that is.  It was mother who was the fan in our family.  My dad likes the game enough, but the Yankees traded his favorite player away, and he‘s still mad at them.  This happened late in 1948.  So it was mom who introduced me to the game.  In my teenage years, when we went nearly every day, it was she who trundled me and my sister to the ballpark.  It was on her TV that I came to love the sport and by her side that I began to understand it.  And sitting next to her that I began to understand that I was not going to be any damn good playing it, and if I wanted in, maybe I‘d better try talking about it. 

Thus was born a career, the results of which you see now.  At least half of the ham comes from her.  She was an aspiring ballerina.  And when I keep talking and talking and talking, for good or for ill, that‘s pretty much all her.  What I don‘t have pictures of are the thousands of hours she spent driving me to and from school so I could work on the newspaper or announce the hockey game. 

In retrospect, it‘s obvious she was, to adapt a phrase, a media mom.  It was the proverbial sudden illness in the best of senses.  She had no apparent symptoms until two weeks ago.  She was not severely afflicted until ten days ago.  The treatment lessened her pain, and she never awakened, thus never had to hear, nor did any of us have to say, you have terminal cancer. 

I‘m not going to end with harangue about how you need to go see your doctor, because not feeling so bad does not mean you are not sick, though you should keep that in mind.  But knowing those of you who watch this show and others I‘ve done, I‘m always overwhelmed by your support and how personally you take all this.  If you are so inclined, instead of flowers or card or whatever, make a donation to Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation or St. Jude‘s hospital.  They do such important work there too.

Marie Olbermann is survived by her husband, my dad, my sister Jen and her husband and their two kids, Jacob and Eve, mom‘s grandchildren.  By her cousins Robert and Bill Shlombom (ph) and their families, by just about everybody in baseball, and by me.  Good night, mom, and good luck.

 

 

Susan G. Koman Breast Foundation

St. Jude’s Hospital

We wished we had known her!

Countdown Comments #3

 

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

 

~~ Richard Feynman, physicist and author

 

 

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