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“Olney make believe…”
Sorry, I can never keep that name straight. The natural tendency is to dyslex it into “only.”
ESPN baseball writer/broadcaster Buster Olney was the guest on the latest Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me‘s “Not My Job” segment.
I felt kind of badly for him. There was zero response to Peter Sagal’s introduction. I mean “crickets.”
There was no local connection — Olney grew up in Vermont — nor was he in Chicago, the home base of Wait Wait, on assignment. On the other hand, panelist Paula Poundstone asked, “Is there a point at which you’ve said everything that can be said about baseball?” Laughter and applause.
I asked Sagal about it via email. He replied, “No… we’re just baseball dorks, we knew he was a fan of the show, it was baseball season, so we booked him. Besides, his name is ‘Buster.’ Colorful.”
The “Not my job” topic — “Reports of his death are not exaggerated at all” — focused on Samuel Clemens, who died just about 100 years ago. Of course, Clemens –aka Mark Twain — wrote about baseball in his classic, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and elsewhere.
Did Olney win? Listen at the official WWDTM website or download from iTunes to find out.
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