Coming This Fall

Yesterday, my friend and fellow NotGraphs content-vomiter David Temple wrote about his utter and complete failure to finish a work of children’s fiction, The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. Finish reading it, I mean. It goes without saying that all of us at NotGraphs are frustrated failed novelists of some stripe or another, with at least one unfinished semi-autobiographical manuscript floating around on our hard drives, but Temple’s aborted attempt to read 130 pages of shockingly simplistic prose will go down as one of the more embarrassing literary admissions to grace these digital pages (the most embarrassing of which is still, by quite a large margin, the cover of Cistulli’s book).

But maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on David. With his weak will, he’ll never make it as a Green Lantern, but at least he was attempting to read a book that wasn’t about angsty sparkly vampires who ruin the game of baseball, an increasingly rare effort in what is passing for our culture in 2013. He could have, instead, simply waited around until this Fall, when he could have watched the television equivalent on ABC:

Let us dissect:

0:02—Wait, is that James Caan?

0:04—“I’m going to take you so deep, you’re going to be making me breakfast, baby.”  I have no idea what this means. Is this a saying? Do people say this? What do they mean when they say it? Surely no pitcher in history has made a batter breakfast after being taken deep. Is that a sex thing? Oh, it’s probably a sex thing.

0:10—What was she, like, 20 feet from home plate? Oh well, I’m sure rec-league Jordanny Valdespin had it coming.

0:15—“Terry Gannon is one tough mother.” Ha-HAH! Because she’s a girl. I like wordplay.

0:17—“See you on the field, Dick.” A girl with an attitude! And more wordplay!

0:19—“But life is about to throw her a curve.” I feel like somebody got this narration from a fake Funny or Die trailer. Possible?

0:29—“Messy divorce. Living with my father, who crippled me emotionally.” Thank god they’re getting that exposition in there. Better to tell it, not show it, I always say. It’s faster that way; less ambiguity.

0:30—I really think that’s James Caan.

0:35—“And now the family that stays together will have to learn how to play nice together.” How easy is it to get a job writing the scripts for these voice-overs? I want to give it a shot. “In a world where girls play baseball [ed. note—like that could ever happen!] and old guys look like James Caan, one woman is going to find a man to cook breakfast for for the rest of her life, if she has to bean every guy on the diamond [ed. note—Innuendo!] to do it. Because Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. This fall on ABC.”

0:39—But, I mean, what would Sonny Corleone be doing in a crappy, baseball-related sitcom on ABC? He’s gotta have something more important to do.

0:46—James Caan look-alike yelling at his grandson for missing a fly ball! This is disturbingly like my Little League career.

0:55—Pre-teen girls make the worst Baseball Annies.

0:58—Cobra-Kai wannabe.

1:00—He’s not going to make the team? Then how is pre-pubescent Sylvester Coddmyer III, or whatever the fuck his name is, ever going to impress Annie…I mean Vanessa. Vanessa? Really? What is this, 1986?

1:06—Joke!

1:07—James Caan should really sit down with this guy and tell him to knock it off. I mean, imitation is flattery, I guess, but it really seems out of place in this.

1:12—“This isn’t soccer. We don’t give every kid a trophy.” Burn.

1:24—“I’ll coach my kid, and all the other kids.” /record scratch Wait a minute…the coach is going to be a GIRL?!?

1:28—“Fire is the only thing that loves me.” I did not give you permission to use my likeness, ABC!

1:33—Executive producer 1: “How gay should we make this 11 year old?” Executive producer 2: “Nathan Lane?” Executive producer 1: “Great, find me a parent who doesn’t mind subjecting their child to ridicule for the rest of their adolescence.”

1:38—Bad baseball montage! An important part of any Bad News Bears/Major League rip-off.

1:50—“What the hell are you doin’ coachin’?” Ok, that’s such a bad James Caan impersonation that it’s offensive to anybody who’s even been to the Bronx.

1:56—“I am coaching because nobody wanted these kids. [Ouch, hey coach, we’re sitting right here!] And I [as an attractive blond woman] know how that feels. People are going to call you weird, unathletic, and ga—feminine. [Nodding approvingly, go on coach.]

2:03—“And fat, that kid is fat.” Oh, fake James Caan trying to channel George Carlin’s act, you just tell it like it is. God bless you.

2:05—Holy shit, that’s actually James Caan. What happened to you?

2:11—“A new comedy that proves you’re always safe at home.” Have you seen any James Caan movies? That home is going to be really violent.

2:20—Back in the Game. It’s a play on words, you see. Wordplay!

2:22—See! He’s really violent! And really confused. This isn’t going to end well for anybody in that house.

This I vow to you now: I will watch this shitty-looking Bad News Bears wannabe that thinks it’s 1993, when a woman coaching a baseball team would be a quintessential fish out of water scenario, every single time that it airs this Fall, which should be good for about 3-6 posts. I won’t quit 15 minutes into the pilot like that weak-willed David Temple would. Oh, I’m so glad we have that to look forward to. My prediction: They don’t win any games, but they are winners in their hearts because they tried their best. And the coach’s son totally gets to second base with Vanessa.