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Howard W. RosenbergThis may be neither here nor there, but Olbermann, on his MSNBC show in January 2004, around the time of the release of Pete Rose's book, said betting on baseball has always being a holy grail. I then jumped on that (in a news release) by pointing out that my about-to-released book from that year contains 162 credible reports of bets on regular season baseball by players, managers or club officials through 1900. So, so much for being a holy grail.
However, I was able to use Olbermann's muff to draw coverage to my contrary research. See
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3921022/
http://usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2004-01-07-gambling-history_x.htm
So, while disagreeing with Olbermann's claim, I am glad he framed an issue on a worthy subject that ended up drawing more accurate attention to 19th-century baseball.
As far as what Olbermann may or may not have vowed in relation to the election of the 17 new names to the Hall of Fame:
He need not be taken at face value at anything he says, since he's a TV (and radio) personality, and opinionated TV (and radio) people are notorious for saying some outrageous things. A good example is Bob Ryan the Boston Globe sports writer versus Bob Ryan the TV pundit on ESPN. On ESPN, Ryan said something nutty a few years ago about Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets and then apologized. People say things on TV or radio that they would never write.