ESPN Personalities You'd Love To Hate (Or Maybe Not): Part 2

This is a continuation to my list of ESPN's loved (or hated) personalities.

Past/Present: The Around The Horn Crew

I have to give former host Max Kellerman a bow. He did a pretty darn-tooting good job hosting the show before leaving because of a contract dispute. As for the new host, Tony "Stat Boy" Reali, I don't care much for him. But the panelists you just have to adore (or maybe hate).

The panelists I've heard of have been Bob Ryan (of the Boston Globe), Jay Mariotti (former columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times), Woody Paige (of the Denver Post), J.A. Adande (former columnist for the L.A. Times) and Tim Cowlishaw (of the Dallas Morning News). These men have been the driving force behind ATH since the show's introduction in November 2002.

Now, there are eight regular panelists (including the five named above), three infrequent panelists and guest panelists (which included Mark Cuban, Lil' Wayne and the days of "Stat Boy" prior to hosting ATH).

Past/Present: World Series of Poker Broadcast Team

Chris Marlowe got the WSOP wheel going for ESPN when they started broadcasting the event in 1988. Marlowe hosted the event until 1992, when Dick Van Patten and Jim Albrecht took the reins.

In 1995, Van Patten discontinued covering WSOP after 3 years, the 1996 event was untelevised and Albrecht had poker pro Gabe Kaplan broadcasting beside him in 1997, then Van Patten's son Vince jumped on in 1998.

How long this partnership lasted is uncertain, because there's nothing recorded for 1999 and the Discovery Channel had the rights for the 2000 and 2001 years.

WSOP returned to ESPN in 2002 where Lon McEachern and Kaplan kicked off its network return. It would also be the first year that it would be done for ESPN Latin America and Gabriela Hill, who went solo for ESPN's sister network until 2005.

McEachern would lose Kaplan after the 2002 event, but his co-host to this present day, Norman Chad, would join the team in 2003.

Andrés Agulla joined Hill and the ESPN Latin America team in 2005 and would stick around in 2006. Hill's new and current broadcasting partner, Fernando Alvarez, began broadcasts in 2007.

There are only two years that the Main Event went on ESPN PPV: 2006 and 2007. The team who covered the PPV event were Phil Gordon and Ali Nejad.

Part Three Coming Soon....