Well, I TiVoed Jim Rome's new ESPN show, Rome Is Burning. By far the highlight of the show was Jim Lampley blaming ex-Alabama coach Mike Price’s misbehavior on the widespread availability of SpectraVision porn and Rome’s dumbfounded look in response. And it was cool to hear from Dennis Haysbert (24, Now And Again). But otherwise nothing on the show really grabbed me, and it all struck me as a big love-fest—at least, if you weren’t one of the old-news targets that Rome belatedly went after: Price, ex-Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy, and the Cubs pitcher who dislikes gay people came in for bashing, none of whom strike me as particularly edgy targets. He did come out and basically say the NBA Draft was rigged, but that’s not exactly an “out-there” thesis either. Rome’s at his best when he’s spewing vitriol, but the once-a-week format doesn’t lend itself to vitriol—especially since I’ll have already heard it on ESPN Radio and PTI umpteen times.

My verdict: cut it to half an hour and it might be worthwhile. It beats the crap out of Around The Horn, but then again I’d rather watch Phil Donahue debate Rush Limbaugh than Max Kellerman and four sports journalists yelling at each other. So I’ll probably season-pass it but just watch the stuff that doesn’t look derivative, like the discussion segment.

Meanwhile, you can read Jim Rome’s ghostwriter’s take on the opening night for balance.

Every day, I fast forward through the first 10–15 minutes of SportsCenter to finish PTI (suck on it, Dan Patrick!). The last two days, I’ve seen Pedro Gomez’s visage in the middle of the NHL betting ring story segment and both days I started to wonder what Barry Bonds’ involvement in the whole affair was. It was like seeing Shelley Smith reporting on something other than Shaq or Jim Gray reporting from somewhere other than Kobe Bryant’s ass or Pete Rose’s garbage cans.

By the way, if I just randomly came up with a fake Hispanic name, I think it would be “Pedro Gomez,” which I’m pretty sure is the equivalent to “John Smith” when you want to check into a hotel under a pseudonym in Mexico. (Not to be confused with Michigan State football coach “John L. Smith,” whose first name I believed was actually something like “Johnnel” for about two years.)

My TiVo recorded NFL Live this afternoon on its own whim, but for some reason the show it ran around 2 minutes short and I was treated to the beginning of Jim Rome is Burning (a show I have mocked in the past under its previous, presumably untrademarkable title). But instead of Jim Rome, who I suppose is otherwise disposed with 6/6/06 approaching, I was presented with the balding pate of Jim Gray, the man who nearly rehabilitated Pete Rose’s reputation and spent much of the 2002–03 basketball season embedded in Kobe Bryant’s rectum. Oy vey.