Keith Olbermann just had to go there with the grandmothers.
Olbermann, a self-proclaimed Mets fan, was distraught over the excruciating knee injury suffered by Edwin Diaz during the World Baseball Classic on Wednesday night, which will likely cost the star closer his season.
The former ESPN and MSNBC broadcaster lashed out at the “meaningless” global baseball tournament, and got vulgar about the elderly in the process.
“First Freddie Freeman, now Edwin Diaz,” Olbermann tweeted.
“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.”
Olbermann was admonished by a number of responders, including Wall Street Journal baseball reporter Lindsey Adler.
Adler tweeted: “Genuinely shocking to see this take end with a line about players representing the country ‘where their grandmothers got laid.’ Edwin Diaz grew up in Puerto Rico and Freddie Freeman plays for Canada in remembrance of his late mother. Gross.”
Olbermann issued a partial backtrack.
“Ok, it reads sexist and for that I apologize. Make it ‘where their ancestors got laid,” he responded to Adler.
“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 order for there to be teams beyond the United States, Japan and Latin America that field professional ballplayers, the rules are somewhat relaxed about who can play for which country.
For example, Cam Opp, a relief pitcher in the Mets system, is playing for Great Britain.
Opp lived outside London for six years after his father took an accounting job in the region.
“Strangely enough, I’m probably the most British of them,” Opp joked about his teammates on the squad.