Respect The Great Game!
Baseball is called the great game for many reasons. Baseball embodies the spirit of America, the greatest nation in history. Its membership currently includes players from seventeen different countries. Its parks are considered shrines by many. In 1919, philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as America’s national religion. Baseball movies have won Academy Awards, baseball players have become elected officials, and presidents throw out the first pitch to start the season.
Apparently we’ve struck a nerve.
Friends/Fans of Keith Olbermann have attacked our site in order to prevent us from expressing our opinion. Funny how that never happens to Olby, huh? But this just means we are making our point and that when you can’t win on facts you go all Alinsky and attack the messenger.
Enjoy our Olbermann video montage, because everything is better with a montage.
Given our love of the game, its traditions and history, we are puzzled as to why the greatness that is Major League Baseball, allows Keith Olbermann to tarnish its blog pages with his musings. True, Keith Olbermann is a gifted speaker with a respectable grasp of the great game, but his nightly tirades on MSNBC are often aimed at the very people that fill the stands of baseball parks across our great land. In light of this we have put this site together to ask a very basic question, “Why does Major League Baseball allow an individual who relishes hate speech to be associated with it?”
This is not about restricting free speech. Olbermann has every right to speak his mind, and so do we. We have heard time and time again that those in the limelight should be held to a higher standard. This applies to politicians, athletes, musicians, actors and other highly visible personalities including people with daily television shows used to trumpet personal opinions. When your platform of choice is used to smear, distort, and stoke anger, you need to be called on it. Facts are important things that cannot be ignored; if Obermann actually engaged in thoughtful discussion and legitimate debate, this site might not even exist. But he doesn’t.
Please consider taking a moment to sign our petition that we will take to the Commissioner of Baseball to let our concerns be known. We are not suggesting a boycott of ANYTHING baseball related. We just want to submit our concerns and receive a thoughtful response from those who are entrusted to protect this game that is at the very heart of being an American.
Tags: free speech, hate speech, MSNBC, Olbermann Links, personal responsibility
I’m not calling for a boycott of MLB. I simply cancelled my plans for going to a Mariners Game. I cancelled my MLB.tv subscription. I have not bought a Phillies cap even though my son’s babe ruth team is the Phillies. I really just needed to step back from my outrage at MLB for endorsing this nut job. So I missed out on Doc’s Perfect Game. I’m not going back to supporting Mlb while they allow this guy to represent them on their “Official” site.
Wish they’d change their mind but my resolve is not diminised in the slightest.
Somebody said:
…”if Obermann actually engaged in thoughtful discussion and legitimate debate,…”
He’d be out of a job cuz he gets paid for exactly what he does.
I think the real question isn’t why not Rush Limbaugh, but why not George Will? Unlike Rush, who was drummed out of sports reporting, George Will has shown a tremendous amount of knowledge about baseball, and has written several acclaimed books on the subject.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Olbermann having a blog with MLB.com. Read it if you like him; don’t click if you don’t. I’d certainly love to see George Will’s blog, though, and that would provide the political balance you seem to be seeking. (Of course, baseball makes nice common ground for liberals and conservatives alike.)
Go Tigers!
So Olbermann can’t write a blog about baseball because he talks about politics somewhere other than on his MLB blog and some baseball fans may not like what he says — elsewhere?
Uh, if that’s the standard, NO ONE could write an MLB blog geniuses.
That’s what I love about the “new” right wing: They hate political correctness unless they’re using it to whine about something.
Buck up and be real men — for a change. What a bunch of goofballs.
It’s not the standard, it’s the double standard that this site is about. We recognize free speech, and we are exercising our free speech. Why is it that Marge Schott can be banned from baseball for a year over a questionable phrase but Olbermann can spew hate regularly and still write for the league? Conservatives are tired of the double standard, that’s all.
Hey genius, you’re clueless. Apply the same standard that you leftist lunatics applied to Rush on ESPN. So predictable…….
Say it ain’t so, Major League Baseball
MLB couldn’t prevent MSNB’s current “great oracle” from writing for them without having to make sure Ty Cobb got tossed from the Hall of Fame, along with dishonoring alot of former players, owners and assorted personnel who figured greatly in the history of the game but whose political views were somewhat overripe. Not all of MLB’s past was a group hug.
It doesn’t matter that he’s writing for them, anyway, not for any fan of the game. Hell, this is the sport which is allowing one of its’ teams to place a larger than life statue of Bud “bleeping” Selig outside one of it’ parks.
If the twit from MSNBC wsn’t writing for them who’d you suggest, George Will? Why bring tawdry electoral politics into the space between the foul lines? I’ve been to so many games I don’t know how many. I’m not sure how many millions of fans have sat in seats on those days I’ve been in attendance. I’m pretty sure that among those millions were a few who held views different than my own. Who bleeping cares about that kind of nonsense. I’ve seen the likes of Mays, Aaron, Bonds, Marichal, Seaver, Gibson, Rose, Ryan et al play the game. Who bleeping cares about one twit from one of the nation’s sad spectacle “news” shows? If he’s bought his ticket to a game I attend I don’t object to sitting in the same stadium with him.
Uhhhhh, you guys know that anyone can have an MLBlog, right? I have no opinion of Olbermann politically, but what you seem to be advocating is MLB.com ascertaining the political views of everyone who has a blog on their site, and then deciding who to keep and who to get rid of based on whether or not they agree with you. How do you know there aren’t hundreds of MLB bloggers (even “celebrity” ones) who hold views more reprehensible to you than Olbermann? Are you going to start sites for them too? A bunch of players have MLBlogs. So does Alyssa Milano. All the beat writers for MLB.com have them. Do you know if they’re all on your side politically?
You’re not quite getting the difference between you or me having a blog at MLB.com versus someone of Olbermann’s stature and visibility. He has a weekly show where he spreads very strong opinions, often in a hateful manner. Baseball should have some sort of standard, that’s all.
Richard Nixon said he might have been a sports writer if he had never gone into politics,said he would love to have been commissioner of the NFL or MLB – and got endless ,nasty flack and mockery from the media for it, and for his love and “knowledge” about football.
Olbermann is the flip side; he’s a sports writer who claims to know everything about sports and politics, and totally brainless about both – yet never gets a single ounce of nasty mockery about it from the media,because they’re as Leftist as His Odiousness is.
I don’t care if he knows more about baseball than Bob Costas,Bill James,and Pete Rose combined,he applies the same bombastic,condescending,delusional megalomania about baseball,in the same way he applies to,well everything else – politics,most ODIOUSLY,of course.In a word,insufferable,impossible to even respect.
Maybe if MLB sees how badly Newsweek and USA Today, (not too mention more), are going down in flames due to their obvious bias and love affair with Mr. Obama on every cover…maybe, just maybe, they will realize hiring Olbermann is a very bad business idea.
Rush Limbaugh was quote ” to polarizing a figure for football”, so why isn’t Olbermann as polarizing for baseball? Many will flee with his entrance….including me.
Our household will not participate in anything having to do with Mr. Olbermann.
If baseball truly is the great game that represents the great swath of American diversity, that has to include the diversity of opinions. There’s a difference between political opinion and sports opinion. Olbermann started his career as a sports writer and has a vast sports knowledge. He writes and speaks well about the game. That should be all a sports writer needs. If you don’t agree with him politically (calling it “hate speech” is a massive stretch), fine. You don’t have to. You also don’t have to agree with his opinions on sports. But he has a resume that affords him the right to comment on sports based on his experience and knowledge. Since someone made the comparison to Limbaugh, the day Olbermann says something about black quarterbacks being worse than white quarterbacks like Limbaugh did, that’ll be a different story.
Once again, another clueless idiot regurgitates a lie. Limbaugh never insulted black quarterbacks, he criticized the WHITE reporters who were tripping over themselves at the time to anoint McNabb as the second coming of Jim Thorpe.
Sorry Christian, you are not quite accurate re: Limbaugh’s comments. A little more research should help clear things up.
Rush did not say that. Come on people use your brain to find out things for yourself. Besides, that was on ESPN, which seems to have it’s own little bias problems. IMHO
Here’s the quote Christian, feel free to point out the racist part of it.
“I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”
ChickaBOOMer| Keith Olbermann: Baseball Hall Of Shame
http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2010/05/keith-olbermann-baseball-hall-of-shame.html
I turn the TV off when this guy comes on, especially when he comments on NFL day, and now this? I say you do boycott…
I always tensed up when I heard this guy comment on the games. I do remember the flak Limbaugh got with the NFL. I thought that was a bad idea, I thought Dennis Miller was a bad idea and so on…keep all form of politics…and political comments even by announcers off the game. It’s baseball. If I want to hear your politics I’ll tune in somewhere else. Pull this guy and send him home.
NewsBusters: Group Seeks to Get Olbermann Dropped as MLB.com Writer for ‘Hate Speech’
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/05/04/group-seeks-get-olbermann-dropped-mlb-com-writer-hate-speech
The answer is easy, Doug: in contrast to either Limbaugh or Palin –
Olbermann has won multiple awards for his sports reporting; is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and a consultant for Topps cards; and even has a book about major league coaches, written when he was 15, in the Baseball Hall of Fame. IOW, he has proven himself qualified to write on the subject of baseball to everyone’s satisfaction — except, of course, people who disagree with his politics.
Petitions to silence commentators have a poor history of success. Signature campaigns to get Olbermann removed from NBC’s football pregame broadcast, as well as one initiated by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly to get Olbermann thrown off his own show, have failed. (And Olbermann himself signed the latter!) It’s therefore doubtful you’ll be able to discredit him in yet another arena in which he’s demonstrated irrefutable competence.
Your best course is to take on his political opinions individually and refute them, if you can.
Mark, thanks for visiting and taking the time to respond.
This isn’t about qualifications, it’s about hate speech and public image. We acknowledge that KO knows the game incredibly well. But in my own opinion this is trumped by his anger toward conservatives and his abuse of the platform he has to repeatedly attack and smear conservatives. Marge Schott was suspended for a year over just a couple of comments. If the same standard was applied to KO he would be suspended for the rest of his life.
There is not enough time in the day to dispute the errors he has broadcast, but a basic web search should do the trick if you are truly interested in the truth as compared to his daily editorializing. (I’m old enough to remember when news shows had to state “this is an editorial comment” before a commentator could offer opinion instead of just reporting.
Thanks again for visiting.
You’re welcome. I was merely replying to the question, Why Olbermann and not Limbaugh or Palin on a sports blog sponsored by the sport.
Olbermann’s insights into matters touching baseball have long been appreciated by many people, including those involved in the sport, and he makes an effort to keep sports and politics separate. (His detractors should do the same, IMO, and avoid making political comments on his baseball site; it spoils it for the majority of visitors who just want to share their love of the game. Have a heart, guys — there need to be politics-free sites! Tons of other blogs exist where Olbermann’s political opinions are being debated daily and you can respond to those opinions there.)
I’m for free speech….that also includes us folks speaking out against olbermann. The problem I have with him is most of his political points are void of any facts. He made a remark on nbc football after Trent Edwards was knocked silly, about how Edwards was hit so hard he thought he could see Russia from his house. An obvious knock on Sarah Palin. Someone should have asked him if Russia was one of our 57 states, which is how many obama said he had been to while campaigning. Now he is asking people to boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks because Arizona is enforcing the immagration law…..and he claims that the Diamondbacks lack diversity.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/eyeblast-tv-staff/2010/05/11/video-olbermann-vs-diamondbacks#comments
Olbermann’s qualifications are irrelevant. There are many other qualified individuals to do what Olbermann does for MLB.com and NBC, without the legacy of hate spewed rantings connected to them.
I don’t a problem as long as he sticks to sports and not politics. He just can’t seem to do that. olbermann knows he will never get kicked off of MSNBC, because they may even be left of him, if that’s possible. O’Riley crushes him in the ratings. That is why olbermann wants a fued….with O’Riley, Limbaugh or you or me if we had a show. Anything to make people watch. Right now the only thing that makes people watch is a very low IQ.
I would like to retract my low IQ comment. It sounded good when I hit the submit button, but after further review…..I don’t like to debate that way. Sorry folks.
Any time Olberdork is at the desk, I’m surfing for a different sports news show.
I will never watch any sporting event that this vile person participates in,I was shocked last year when he showed up as a commentator for a NFL game on NBC,I turned the tv off,this hatemonger needs to be put in a cage away from society.
Keith Olbermann is on record with the most vile, anti-semetic, anti-women, and anti-minority. His “show” is consistently in LAST PLACE in the ratings for a reason.
He’s bad for the country and he’s bad for Baseball.
If Rush Limbaugh is not allowed to be a part owner a football team or provide commentary for ESPN, why should Keith Olbermann be allowed to write for MLB.com? Sure, its a different sport, different league, but would Mr. Limbaugh EVER get to write for MLB.com? How about Sarah Palin?
Exactly Doug. Interestingly enough, KO actually supported Limbaugh’s interest in football ownership. After all, this is a free country, right? KO can say what he wants, and so can we.
When making an argument its best to compare apples to apples. Rush was hired by ESPN years ago in a similar role Olberman has with both the NFL and MLB. He got himself fired by making idiotic statements regrading a Superstar Player’s race. When Olberman does the same we can ask for his head till then suck it up. By the way as a Yankee fan I find Curt Schilling new job much more of a concern.
Schilling is a baseball legend. The bloody sock trumps politics.