What’s this show called … The Franchise: A Season With the San Francisco Giants?

In sports fandom, it’s all about the team … or the player. I’m more of a player guy myself, cheering for individuals even as they rotate from one club to another. I’ve loved Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant since they were making waves as high school seniors … Kobe’s been easy to root for as a Laker, but it was tough cheering for KG through twelve fallow seasons in Minnesota. To be honest, he looks kind of funny in Celtics green … but I love the hardware!

But when it comes to baseball, I’m a bit more traditional: New York Yankees for the win! Sure I was a huge Ken Griffey Jr. fan — from Seattle to Cincinnati to Chicago back to Seattle — but rooting for the pinstripes helps this wandering New Yorker stay connected to home.

So the idea of tuning in to Showtime’s new series, The Franchise, was a bit of a strange undertaking for me. Granted I wasn’t being asked to root for the San Francisco Giants, but some of these docu-series are done so well — see HBO’s Hard Knocks and ESPN Films’ 30 for 30, particularly “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks” — that I feared the inevitable empathy for a team not my own.

Yet because of programs like Hard Knocks and 30 for 30 I felt confident that I’d at least not waste an hour of my time … what to do, what to do? Well, this made it easier to decide: my original subject for this week’s column, Roseanne’s Nuts, was so horrible that I had to quickly make a plan “B.” I couldn’t spend thirty minutes with Roseanne.

So instead I went with The Franchise: A Season With the San Francisco Giants, a show all about a team I don’t care about, in a league I don’t care about. The National League? Just call it what we all see it as: another level of the minor league system.

Despite that, and true to my hopes that Showtime would live up to the precedent set by HBO and ESPN, The Franchise is done really well. The stories are told in an interesting, informative, and fun manner, and it’s not about being a fan of this team or that … it’s about getting to peak behind a curtain that’s long been drawn between fans and athletes. We live in such different worlds that it’s nice to be reminded of how much alike we are — juggling family and work, missing your kids when you travel, getting into a funk, and at times struggling with your job. Because at the end of the day we’re all just people trying to live our lives.

Some of the more noteworthy parts of the premiere episode included:

• The story of Bryan Stow, the Giants fan brutally beaten outside Dodgers stadium on opening day by two LA fans, was incorporated very tastefully. It was part of the beginning of the Giants’ season, so to overlook it would have been a mistake. I hope the Giants and Dodgers do something really nice for Stow and his family when he’s finally back on his feet.
• One of the funniest parts of the hour came during the Stow sequence … the Giants/Dodgers rivalry was called “one of the greatest in baseball.” Maybe it’s my East Coast bias, but Yankees/Red Sox makes everything else look like rival toddler gangs on bright red tricycles (as far as how enthralling a rivalry it is).
• I thought the family separations were a nice light to put long road trips in, but a lot of these guys are single. We don’t need to see the debauchery, but for all the guys missing their kids there are many more looking forward to experiencing different cities for two straight weeks. I’m curious to get a glimpse of their travels as well. Do they get recognized? Do they get booed? Do their arrests end up on the local news?
• Ryan Vogelsong getting another chance at the majors after ace pitcher Barry Zito went down is a great story. The nicest part was Vogelsong’s wife getting the opportunity to burst with pride for her husband, who I’m sure has struggled a long time to get where he is. Making an All-Star team must have just been icing on the cake.
• For all the uplifting stories like Vogelsong’s, there are depressing ones like catcher Buster Posey getting rocked by the Marlins’ Scott Cousins at home plate back in May. I’m not going to get into whether or not the rules should be changed, but the footage Showtime used clearly showed Cousins scrambling to check on Posey as soon as he slapped home plate. That might seem like nothing, but a lot of guys would have just walked away (look at the NBA if you don’t believe me). That’s what baseball once was.

I do wonder a bit about how this story is going to be told going forward. I was surprised that the first hour took us from the season opener to just a few weeks ago; I thought every episode would be playing a month or two behind. But in hindsight I realize that, while we followed guys like Vogelsong and Zito to the All-Star break, there are plenty more player stories to be told.

I’m looking forward to watching them all.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jul 18, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT