Keith Olbermann Will Host TBS Playoff Baseball Coverage
By Josh Hill
He’s loud, he’s brash and often outspoken but Keith Olbermann is headed back to a television screen near you. One half of the immensely popular Big Show SportsCenter team that brought ESPN to the place in pop culture it is today, Olbermann will be joining TBS’ coverage team for the postseason this year.
According to a report in USA Today, Olbermann will be manning hosting duties for TBS’ studio pre and post game shows for the duration of the station’s coverage of October baseball. The move means that Cal Ripken Jr. will be taking his talents to the play-by-play booth and will be Ernie Johnson’s right hand color analyst as part of TBS’ A-Team for it’s baseball coverage.
While he’s rubbed more than a few people the wrong way in his career and in his own words “nuked bridges” rather than burned them, many people don’t know that Olbermann is a baseball aficionado and is a savant when it comes to the history of the game. That’s the knowledge and style TBS is going for by adding a guy like Olbermann to it’s team as his move to TBS will mark the fourth major sports team he’s been a part of.
Olbermann got his start with ESPN in the early 90s and along with Dan Patrick, made SportsCenter the popular show it is today and helped launch ESPN’s credibility and popularity into the stratosphere. But he’s often been a guy who fights back against authority and after being let go at ESPN in the late 90s, he had a stint with Fox Sports before moving to an all political format with MSNBC.
Olbermann returned to sports coverage in the late 2000s when NBC reunited him with Patrick for Football Night in America highlight coverage. Olbermann was again fired, this time by NBC and has been floating around with his ‘Baseball Nerd’ blog on MLB.com before landing this gig with TBS.
For those that like him, Olbermann is back covering sports once again, and baseball no less. For those who hate him, given his history in broadcasting it likely won’t be long before he tests the wrong person in management and is once again looking for work.