Keith Olbermann: ‘Every One of My Jobs Has Lasted at Least One Month’

Olbermann is noncommital on his future beyond the new TBS baseball postseason job

Keith Olbermann's new job on TBS may be perfect for him — because it's only about a month long.

Olbermann will host TBS' studio coverage for Major League Baseball's postseason, the network announced Wednesday. In a conference call about the new job, Olbermann and Turner Broadcasting sports president David Levy addressed Olbermann's long history of joining and leaving networks.

"The safety valve here is that my season is about a month long. And if you check, if you go through the 37 pages of my resume, you'll see that every one of my jobs has lasted at least one month," Olbermann joked. "So we're covered no matter what the eventuality is."

Also read: ESPN Reportedly Uninterested in Olbermann Return

He said of his resume: "I have a truck that I carry it in."

Asked about his future ambitions beyond baseball coverage, he said he was "open to pursuing other things, of course. Planning on it? No. Need to? Fortunately not."

"Whatever else could be out there could not be as compelling as this," he said.

Levy said he wouldn't discuss whether Olbermann's contract will extend beyond this year, but said he hoped the new studio show would "last for a long, long time."

Olbermann brushed off a question about his recent reported interest in joining ESPN, telling a reporter, "I think you're best served to ask them directly."

Olbermann started his career as a New York sports reporter and anchor for CNN, which like TBS is a Turner network. He anchored ESPN’s "SportsCenter" from 1992 to 1997 and served as a studio host for both NBC’s and Fox’s MLB postseason coverage.

He then rejoined CNN in 2001 and 2002, and from 2003 to 2011 hosted "Countdown." After leaving in a feud with management, he joined Current TV, which he left less than a year later in another feud with management. 

"I have been so bad at predicting my own future that it would be useless to make any predictions at this point," Olbermann said Wednesday.

But he was happy to talk baseball. Asked about reports that 20 players may be suspended in a doping scandal, he regaled reporters with the story of the first professional ballplayer believed to have used performance-enhancing drugs.

"Baseball's first known user of performance-enhancing drugs was a pitcher from the … Pittsburgh team of the National League named James "Pud" Galvin, who is in the Hall of Fame, who participated, and I'm not making this up, in a series of monkey-gland experiments at a clinic in Pittsburgh in 1889," he said.

"So even though those of us who are purists are always worried about the game … I think we have to admit that whatever it is and whoever is affected by it, baseball abides."

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