Keith Olbermann returning to ESPN

Seats at Open were half empty due to constant rain delays yesterday. There's no place for tennis fans to get out of the rain except the 7 train back home.

 

You may could have said that . . . in the early 90s . . . about Wimbledon . . . before the balls and courts everywhere were slowed.

Now? Not really. Shotmaking is out of this world.

A spectacular point made even more so in that it came on match point to end a 5-hour match.

 

Yeah I'm with BTE. It HAS become a very baseline to baseline game, and if that's not your thing I can see how you'd be bored.

I also think it's become PEDish.

 

It's also taken some of the pleasure out of watching tennis.

 

At least one person in this room could care less that football is starting because baseball is still going on.

 

I said a few days ago that I had enjoyed the first two episodes of Olbermann.

Here is a 7:44 clip of a commentary from last night that is vintage Keith Olbermann. There are not very many people who would have taken this position on the air or who could have delivered it nearly as well.

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Typical Olberman. No different than his other shows. No dissenting opinion and anecdotal evidence. The players in his "video evidence" had lots of other issues. How do we know Mike Webster was a victim of concussions and not steroids?

Until Olberman rips ESPN for pulling out of the Frontline documentary, his concussion opinion is worthless.

 

Thought that was tremendous. And Pancamo ... "anecdotal evidence"? Really? The majority of those players were confirmed to have CTE, but Webster was gone before they really started studying that. I think it's more than coincidental what happened to all of those guys.

 

Let me suppose for a moment that Keith Olbermann delivered an 8-minute diatribe scathing ESPN for pulling out of the concussion story on Frontline. However, he did this in what you call his typical fashion - there was no dissenting opinion and only evidence of the type used here that you call anectodal.

Question: Would such a comment be a good one - because you happen to agree with the argument - or would it just be another "typical Olbermann" segment that is worthless?

For the record, I do not know Keith Olbermann. From what I have read and heard, he is not a warm and magnanimous person and I certainly did not agree with most of his political positions as presented on his previous programs. Nonetheless, that segment was powerful, direct and to the point. I suspect that the writer cited in the piece will not respond...

 

Feel exactly the same way, and my first couple of viewings of his new show, I thought he came across as his typical pompous self. But this was very well done. And then there is this, on the Giants' Doug Kotar the previous night:

 

I really want to give his show a chance, but that's the same kind of sanctimony that just drives me away.

As others have noted, so many of the examples are nothing more than anecdotal. I mean, geez, some people are attracted to a violent game because they like the violence. The game didn't make them violent. They were violent before and they were violent after.

 

A pretty solid first week. At some point though, he's going to have to call out his own network though. You can't just pick on local writers or people at competing networks when you live in a glass house.