The season-ending injury suffered by Mets closer Edwin Diaz at the World Baseball Classic renewed the debate over the preseason exhibition tournament.
And perhaps no one had a spicier take than polarizing veteran TV host Keith Olbermann.
The former longtime ESPN and MSNBC anchor came under fire not only calling for the cancellation of the WBC in response to the Diaz injury, but also for invoking some colorful language in doing so.
"First Freddie Freeman, now Edwin Diaz," Olbermann wrote on Twitter. "The WBC is a meaningless exhibition series designed to: get YOU to buy another uniform, to hell with the real season, and split up teammates based on where their grandmothers got laid. Call it off. Now."
After fierce backlash, especially with respect to the phrase "based on where their grandmothers got laid," Olbermann backtracked on his crude phrasing, but he stood by the sentiment.
"Ok, it reads sexist, and for that I apologize," Olbermann said. "Make it 'where their ancestors got laid.' That blunt description of the artificiality of the team assignments is also trivial and for that I apologize. But WBC has always been a threat to what actually counts: The Season. Kill it."
In addition to the language, Olbermann's call to "kill" the WBC didn't exactly sit well with fans of the event.
Probably his most valid argument was to question a baseball competition arbitrarily organized by nationality. Even in that context, many players are suiting up for countries where they have no ties, or only a tangential one.
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