Theoretically it should be possible. The trackball should replicate a mouse and if ES could translate trackball/mouse inputs as joystick/keyboard inputs then it should be theoretically possible. I haven't tried this nor am I involved in development here, but this would be cool functionality. Right now you could get around this with a little USB control pad that is only used for ES, but I understand this isn't a long term solution. I'm not sure if this is the right place to suggest modifications to EmulationStation, but perhaps specific workaround code could be developed similar to the "xarcade2joystick" (or whatever it's called) functionality. This would be cool nonetheless.