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Fernando Vina's Future at ESPN Still Unclear

Fernando VinaWhen former big leaguer and current ESPN analyst Fernando Vina was named in the Mitchell Report, some people wondered why ESPN didn't immediately put him on the air to address the allegations. But as it turns out, his conspicuous absence was apparently his decision and not the network's. From Richard Deitsch of SI.com:
Will Fernando Viña appear on ESPN again? The network says it's up to him. Viña joined ESPN's Baseball Tonight as an analyst in 2007 but has yet to appear on any ESPN property since being named in the Mitchell Report.

"We reported on him specifically when the Mitchell Report came out," an ESPN spokesman told SI.com Sunday night. "He knows we have been trying to get him on the air since the report came out. We do not definitively know when that will happen. But he knows we are trying to get him on the air."
Many of the former players named in the report will be able to escape the public eye by simply refusing to comment, but if Vina wants to continue working on television, this is something he'll have to address in a very candid manner if he hopes to retain even a shred of credibility. And if he doesn't decide to face the music? I'm not sure he'll really be missed. His commentary was usually vanilla at best, an he could easily be replaced by any other ex-jock wanting to get their face on television.

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