Independent Film Channel (IFC) has a
new, dark comedy centered on baseball. If you haven’t seen it, you’re
missing a great show. It is as smart as it is hilarious. It’s Brockmire.
Hank Azaria, perhaps best known for his
voice work on The Simpsons as Moe Szyslak, Apu
Nahasapeemapetilon, Comic Book Guy, and Chief Clancy Wiggum is Jim Brockmire. Brockmire is a former play-by-play announcer for the major league franchise in
Kansas City and a high-functioning alcoholic. After an on-air, whiskey-fueled,
sexually explicit rant about his "swinging" wife, Brockmire becomes fantastically
famous, or, more accurately, infamous, as the subject of first viral video of the social
media era. Obviously, he's fired by the team.
I went home to surprise my wife on our anniversary
and, please imagine my surprise when I came home to find half a dozen naked
folks sprawled out in my living room in what can only be described as a
desperate and hungry kind of love making. Right in the middle of it was my
wife, Lucy. Fastball misses, just low, count goes full, three and two.
(That represents, perhaps, the least offensive quote in the entire script.)
Brockmire’s tirade becomes hilariously more graphic and acerbic as horrified heartland listeners freeze in shock while team staff members try, in vain, to get into the broadcast booth to stop him.
Brockmire’s tirade becomes hilariously more graphic and acerbic as horrified heartland listeners freeze in shock while team staff members try, in vain, to get into the broadcast booth to stop him.
Media-savvy owner of the minor league
Morristown (PA) Frackers, Jules, beautifully portrayed by Amanda Peet, tracks
down Brockmire who’s been announcing cockfights, living in bars, and sleeping
in brothels in Manila. Jules hires Brockmire to call play-by-play on the public address system for the financially-strapped and struggling Frackers. Jules, who has taken a
second mortgage on her bar to buy the team, is as much a match for Brockmire’s
cynical wit as she is for his appetite for alcohol. She hopes Brockmire’s proclivity
for amusing absurdity will not only draw more fans to the stadium, but will
also provide exposure for the Frackers through concerted social media posts of his "cannot tell a lie" tirades.
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| Amanda Peet and Hank Azaria in Brockmire |
The second episode, “Winning Streak,”
Brockmire finds himself in Jules’s bed after a drinking contest that ends in a
draw. Brockmire stays in character, calling play-by-play of the outrageous sexplay. The next day,
the Frackers win. Baseball enthusiasts, both Brockmire and Jules adhere to
the time-honored tradition of baseball streaks and superstitions continue to
their torrid affair. In some cases,
hilariously, and in some cases, cringe-worthy, they do and the Frackers continue
to win.
Brockmire has plenty of foils including
his teen-age producer, Charles (Tyrel Jackson Williams), the past-his-prime,
cocaine snorting slugger, Pedro Uribe (Hemky Madera), and Lucy Brockmire (Kate
Finneran), herself, all of whom provide ample opportunity for the subtle social
commentary which the game so often provides. Considering Brockmire, like to Bull Durham, is character focused, IFC has a formula for success
where other baseball productions have failed. IFC even has a little fun with
Brockmire as it keeps Azaria in character to do commercials for the real Sam
Adams Lager.
"It's just good fucking beer."
If there is one criticism of the
otherwise reasonably realistic series is that the main characters are far too healthy
and attractive to be career alcoholics. While Brockmire does exaggerate for effect including uniforms that are just
a bit dingier than they should actually be, overstated clubhouse “characters,” and
more garbage left in the stadium stands than could have possibly been created by the
sparse gate, Brockmire and Jules look great for a fifty-something and a
thirty-something, respectively, who drink their breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
As the late St. Louis Cardinals announcer Jack Buck might have said, "That's a winner, folks."
