Kotaku: Olbermann, Ripping Me Softly For This Column

Flak! Incoming!

Keith Olbermann has called me down to the union hall to surrender my liberal card. The MSNBC commentator disagrees with Saturday’s Stick Jockey, about replacement players from the 1995 baseball strike being denied an appearance in video games.

...So, he argues, scab players pay a justifiable and largely symbolic penalty for empowering an ownership hellbent on busting the union, even to the point of taking a wrecking ball to the game of baseball. Fair enough. But I do think Olbermann’s kicker is a little over the top: “If you feel your video game is incomplete without Brendan Donnelly, you may be a little too into video games.” Donnelly may not be an all-star, but ask a Sox gamer how he feels about seeing Millar, a beloved member of the 2004 World Series championship team, represented in the 2005 video games as a black man with a blond goatee.

Finally, I’m a bit hurt Keith refers to me as “the Kotaku.com writer” and not by name. After all, the sister of the wife of my father’s half-brother went to prep school with him. (Literally true.) It’s how I got his seats at Yankee Stadium the night Pedro Martinez struck out 17, faced one over the minimum and one-hit the Pinstripes in 1999. But apparently family ties mean nothing - nothing! - to Keith.