Pete Rose: On Trial: On ESPN
 

On 7 PM tomorrow, ESPN is supposed to show "Pete Rose: On Trial" about whether he should be reinstated.

I saw some of the commericals and I thought it was just an hour show with Dershowitz and Cochran giving their opinions on the Rose issue.

Imagine my suprise when I went to the website (http://espn.go.com/mlb/roseontrial.html#) and found out that it's a REAL-STYLE TRIAL! That means prosecution witnesses, defense witnesses, a judge, a jury... all the works! It just isn't binding. The trial goes from 7-10, and then from 10-11 they have a recap, jury deliberations, and the verdict.

WOW! From something I was mildly interested in, now I can't wait to see this!

Here are the major players:

Judge:
Catherine Crier
Emmy Award-winning journalist, the youngest state judge ever elected in Texas, and the host of "Catherine Crier Live" on Court TV.

Prosecuting attorney:
Alan Dershowitz
Widely respected Harvard Law School professor who has been involved in many high-profile cases.

Defense attorney:
Johnnie Cochran
Lead counsel on O.J. Simpson's trial team.

Jury foreman:
Eddie Andelman
Long-time sports talk radio host in Boston.

WITNESSES

FOR THE PROSECUTION:

Dr. Jon Grant
Assistant professor of psychiatry, Brown University.

Lester Munson
Sports Illustrated writer and Dowd report expert.

Jim Palmer
Hall of Fame pitcher won 268 games and three Cy Young awards.

Dan Shaughnessy
Boston Globe writer and baseball historian.

FOR THE DEFENSE:

Hank Aaron
Hall of Fame outfielder and baseball's all-time home-run king with 755 home runs.

Bill James
Famous sabermetrician and current advisor to the Boston Red Sox.

Bill "Spaceman" Lee
Colorful and opinionated southpaw who won 119 games, most with Boston.

Dave Parker
Seven-time All-Star who played under Rose in Cincinnati from 1984-87.

Arnie Wexler
Counselor for chronic gamblers

You call "Banana" a humorous option?

Shame on you...

Yeah I voted for banana. But you should have replaced banana with Calazone. I mean someone has to stick up for the Calazone.

Sports coverage has gone way too far. I just want to watch sports, and watch highlights of sports. I don't want - or need - all of this superfluous shit. I didn't watch a second of the ESPYs, and I almost vomited when I turned on ESPN at 8pm and saw an Academy Awards/E! Entertainment-style pre-show "gala" - complete with E! Entertainment "correspondents" and Pat Effin O'Brien.

I'm sorry. I've got to go. I'm getting sick again.

Bah! This stuff is what makes ESPN great! This is wonderful programming!

One of the options to vote should have been: Eddie Andelman is a putz

Seeing as I have no idea who he is, that would have been quite a feat ;).

I suppose you cheered when MTV stopped playing music videos as well?

He is probably one of the greats of Sports talk radio in the country.

Unfortunatly now he is old and senile.. Okay, maybe not that old and not that senile, but perhaps the most tunnel visioned person I have ever seen. He does not believe in radio journalism. Everything with him sounds like he is Red Sox fan number one. No sense of objectivity ever.

I don't usually watch MTV and quality of music they play on that channel was crap anyway, so I have no problem with whatever they are doing ;).l

But, I will say that 'I Love the 80s' on VH1 is better than any music programming they can put on that network :p.

And of course this DOES deal with sports. Pete Rose, baseball, hello?

That's how MTV started, too, with music-related game shows and such. Now the only connection to music is the soundtracks to the shows they constantly air.

I guess I'm just fed up with the constant attention given to personalities, rather than the sports themselves. I hate Hollywood and most popular music because the personalities mean more than the underlying reason for the (undue) attnetion they receive, and that ruins it for me. I see sports moving in that direction, and it bothers me.

Well yes, but this is actually a fairly important sports story. I mean the whole deal about Rose is huge to any baseball fan. I'm glad ESPN is doing this. It is something they SHOULD do. I also like more "Outside the Lines". Quality programming!

I prefer that rather than 15 Sportscenters in a row.

'nuff said....

This was big news in 1990. Now it's just plain tired. He should be in, he shouldn't be in - nothing's changed in over a decade. The why he should or shouldn't be in has been argued ad nauseum. This just adds to my "nauseum."

Some of the best stuff about sports is the arguments that arise out of it. Which is why plenty of us here love shows like Pardon the Interruption and the Sports Reporters. We love to hear the arguments.

Believe me, I'm an attorney, I love arguments as well. It's just that these arguments are the same ones that have been made for years, so there's really nothing new here.

But really, if I had to choose, I'd much rather watch this kind of show than these Sunday Conversation-type pieces that seem to be getting more and more play on ESPN lately. It's like someone from NBC's Olympic programming department was placed in charge of ESPN.

I don't care about Kobe Bryant's home life, regardless of whether he's guilty of sexual assault or not. I just want the scores. I guess ESPNews is like the MTV2 of sports.