'Pete Rose: Hits & Mrs.' review: Baseballer strikes out

THE SHOW "Pete Rose: Hits & Mrs."

WHEN | WHERE Monday night at 10 on TLC

WHAT ITS ABOUT Say, whatever happened to Pete Rose, aka Charlie Hustle, aka the most productive hitter in baseball history, aka that guy who earned a lifetime ban for gambling? He's living large in Las Vegas (though he notes he may be the only guy in Las Vegas "who doesn't gamble") and is engaged to be married to Playboy model Kiana Kim. (She has children Cassie, 14, and Ashton, 11, from a former marriage; Rose has four grown kids.) This six-part doc looks at their emerging life together; tonight, Kiana's parents arrive for the engagement party. In future installments, Rose apparently discusses approaching Major League Baseball -- again -- about lifting the ban.

MY SAY Whoo boy, there may be worse ways to seek reversal of a lifetime ban (and ultimately installation in Cooperstown) than starring in a six-part TLC reality series, but for the moment, I can't think of one. In this, Rose comes off an amiable non-animated Peter Griffin -- affable, goofy, and semiliterate. If he has a serious case to be made to the baseball commissioner, this doesn't indicate what it might be.

"Hits & Mrs." is (instead) one of those docu-comedy series, with a music track that playfully titters when the subjects say something dopey, which is reasonably often. Kim -- who seems like a nice lady, too, but doesn't seem to know much about what her future husband once did -- speaks in considerable detail about her breast enhancement, while joking that friends refer to her and Rose as "Melons and Felon." Oy vey.

BOTTOM LINE You have a life -- live it, and don't watch this.

GRADE D+

SEE PHOTOSReality show families