Anyone watch the Bob Costas special on HBO?

[Kingdom_of_Zito]

It was all about baseball, past and present. He had various players/other MLB people on for each segment to discuss whatever topics (Evan Longoria, Jimmy Rollins, Jim Palmer, Artie Moreno, Dave Winnfield, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Willie Mayes, etc).

Some of the highlights:
They had a segment concerning Bud Selig and what he's accomplished. In this segment, Selig mentioned how attendance has gone from 50 some million to what will be around 80 some million this season. He mentioned how baseball will draw 7 billion dollars. It discussed how small market teams now have some money these days but it's still not perfect (Mark Shapiro was interviewed). Selig also talked about when the owners unanimously decided to put baseball on the internet (didn't take a genius to figure that one out) and how the number of African Americans in baseball has gone from 30% to 8% (Curtis Granderson was interviewed). Slightly crappy irony: the panel after that segment was 3/4th not African American (Costas, Moreno, Andy Van Slyke and then Dave Winnfield- great message to send there HBO). I believe the Atlanta Braves were one of the teams they were hinting at, when they mentioned several clubs did not feature a single African American player on their opening day roster (I had to think about that one and pretty much anyone of color I could think of for opening day, was not African American.

This town hall was pretty boring compared to the first one, in which Buzz Bissinger ***** slapped the blogger dude and Strahan got into it with one of the Mike and Mad Dog peoples. There were very few fireworks, really the best debate for most of the night was the issue of steroids and if Sosa/McGwire/etc should be voted in (that panel was Rose, Winnfield, and Jim Palmer). Kudos to Palmer, who blatantly said he would not vote for any of those guys. Rose made a few points but kinda said a few things that were pretty damn hypocritical (the discussion of not making mistakes, hah). I did love Rose's comment, when Costas noted that 12 people did not vote for Hank Aaron to the Hall, Rose without missing a beat remarked "Those 12 people were idiots".

Things did pick up on one of the final segments, which revolved around Hank Aaron and Willie Mayes. Joe Torre and Bob Gibson were interviewed about them. After the interviews, a tremendous standing ovation was given for Aaron and Mayes. Gibson and Mayes then traded barbs at each other, so that was pretty funny.

[nyjunc]

I saw it, This is the 2nd time Coastas put together a show like this and they have both been home runs. I hope they keep doing it.