Live From Tampa, It's ESPN

This afternoon I bicycled into downtown Tampa to catch the live TV shows being produced by ESPN in a waterfront park behind the St. Pete Times Forum. There was Trey Wingo, Merrill Hoge and Mark Schlereth doing an NFL show followed by Jim Rome and his Rome is Burning show.

During the NFL show when the ESPN cameras panned in on a motley bunch of football fans behind the set, the fans began to mug for the camera.

Then Grandma the Steelers fan hauls little pudgy Johnny in front of the ESPN TV camera and the kid goes ballistic, crying and terrified of nutty football fans screaming their brains out during the ESPN NFL show.


Looks like that not only does Grandma feed little Johnny like he's a spawn of the Michelin Man, she also makes the kid the centerpiece of a screaming mob.


Oh yeah, that kid is just thrilled.




Finally, the kid gets to walk away. Looks like this is one kid destined to grow up into a nose tackle.


ESPN's NFL guy, Chris Mortenson, gets a little powder to the face.


Glad to see that ESPN doesn't orchestrate the crowd noise when they have live sets.




After the NFL show, Jim Rome did his "Rome is Burning" show and scored the big-time LT -- LaDainian Tomlinson -- for his show.




Wanna see fans go nuts -- just point a TV camera at them.


Fans showed no love for Merrill Hoge, who strolled away without anyone even asking for an autograph.


After the NFL show, pretty boy Mark Schlereth posed with fans for shots.


And we end with my favorite T-shirt of the day.