The Screwball: Introducing TV’s New Playoff Lineup!

Chris Sale as an East Texas rose magnate in Flowers For Sale sounds like Must See TV. (via Dustin Nosler)

Chris Sale as an East Texas rose magnate in Flowers For Sale sounds like Must See TV. (via Dustin Nosler)

So your team didn’t make the playoffs and now you have nothing to watch.

Right? Wrong.

Beginning today, tune in to the exciting new show of your choice!

Balker, Texas Ranger

Following the success of last year’s The Next Knuckler, which earned a pair of Knucklies at the semiannual Knuckly Awards, the MLB Network debuts this thrilling new entry in the sports-reality genre. Filmed on location on a makeshift ballfield behind a Pizza Hut in Watauga, Texas, the show pits five former college screw-ups in a tense competition to determine who can balk most often, and, perhaps more critically, at the worst possible moments.

The winner will receive an invitation to spring training with the Rangers.

“Why the Rangers?” said executive producer Steve Carlton, major league baseball’s all-time balk leader. “Frankly, they volunteered, thinking that whoever wins will get injured in a grisly baggage-claim accident anyway.”

O Candelabra

Fresh this season on MTV Canada is O Candelabra, in which members of the Toronto Blue Jays compete to win the heart of a gorgeous candelabra – well, technically, candelabrum – by composing and singing the national anthem of the fictitious country of North Drabekistan. The lucky winners will honeymoon at Candlestick Park, provided their passports are valid.

Miami Lice

In this exciting new show from Animal Planet, thickly bearded third baseman Casey McGehee goes chin-first into the city’s elementary schools to test the migration patterns of Fahrenholzia pinnata, known otherwise as those pesky obligate ectoparasites that have plagued the nation’s primary schools since the little buggers first came over on a party barge from Panama City – scratch that (ha!), on the Mayflower. During each thrilling episode, McGehee enters an indigenous scholastic habitat and courageously drags his beard across the scalps of domesticated school children until he can accurately track both the migratory route and pace of the wingless insects.

The action gets more intense when, after plotting the information on a graph and entering it into a proprietary database, McGehee graciously donates the little scavengers to underground sex clubs throughout eastern Dade County.

Gardener For Hire

In this bold new drama from HBO, former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire stars as Ron “The Gardener” Gardener, by day a humble horticulturalist – honestly, you should see his pink petunias – but by night a ruthless assassin who uses a variety of gardening implements, including hand trowels and pruning shears, to liquidate a variety of seedy (ha!) characters at the behest of a shady (ha again!) operative from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

What “The Gardener” doesn’t know is that he, too, is being pursued … by a beautiful and mysterious woman known only as Hire, because “Employ” would have been a stupid thing to name somebody. Is Hire coming to seduce him? Is she coming to kill him? Is she coming to seductively kill him by employing him at a sex club in eastern Dade County?

Or is she, in truth, a USDA plant?

Flowers For Sale

As a companion piece to Gardener For Hire, HBO presents this inventive dramedy in which White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers stars as Tyler Flowers, a brilliant East Texas rose farmer who, in order to satisfy an old family debt, is forced to grow prize roses for East Texas rose magnate Chris Sale, played to menacing effect by White Sox lefty Chris Sale. While experimenting with cultivars, Flowers discovers a rose that not only looks delightful – “This looks delightful,” says he – but also, when ingested, gives people the power to read the minds of rival TV executives and thus understand what they’re planning in terms of titling a new show The (Fill In The Blank) Whisperer.

In response, and against the better part of judgment, Flowers decides to sell the flowers on the so-called “pink market” instead of supplying them to Sale.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

How will it all end?

To find out, tune in before Showtime broadcasts The Hydrangea Whisperer.

Curses!

Originally titled The Aristocubs!, this new offering is a hilarious addition to the Comedy Central lineup. In it, an acerbic street comedian rumbles through the Chicago’s North Side and convinces Cubs fans to vent their frustrations by unleashing the foulest streams of profanity they can muster.

“%@#*&%!@!” raves the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Two &*%$#@%s up!” raves this guy right here.

Cot in Cleveland

Hot on the heels of its hit show Hot in Cleveland, TV Land introduces this stylish new comedy from the producers of several shows you’ve never heard of. In it, 44-year-old Jason Giambi enters the Indians clubhouse in the 11th inning of a 7-all game and proceeds to take a very long nap, during which he dreams that he is a naturally muscular problem-solver who uses the business end of Louisville Slugger to get the job done, be it by way of an 11th-inning game-winning homer or the swift kneecapping of an otherwise speedy turnstile jumper.

Later, when young upstart Trevor Bauer enters the clubhouse to nab some sunflower seeds and, oh yeah, “Wake the Giambino,” Giambi rises and promptly grabs his bat.

But is he really awake? Or is he … not awake?

Is this Heaven? Or is this Ohio?

The Big Dead Machine

New this season to the Discovery Channel is The Big Dead Machine, an exciting reality show in which various Cincinnati Reds try to revive an 18th-century wheat thresher with a variety of singular methods – Aroldis Chapman by throwing 104 mph heaters at it, Joey Votto by being polite to it, Skip Schumaker by being versatile to it and Billy Hamilton by running back and forth until such time that the machine can’t help but go hmmmm.

Heimlich!

In an ambitious new miniseries from NBC, TV veteran Chris Noth stars as Harry “Heimy” Heimlich, an Atlanta paramedic summoned each September to the Atlanta Barves (sic) clubhouse in the hopes that his namesake maneuver will dislodge the raspberry popsicle from the throat of the team’s star player.

Year after year, Heimlich responds to the call only to tell the panicked team, “Honestly, you could’ve just waited a few seconds. See? It already melted.”

His shift now completed, Heimlich sticks around to watch the team blow a significant lead while he eats peanuts and Cracker Jack without chewing.

Two Live Brew Crew

The Learning Channel has just announced an exciting supplement to its 2014 lineup, Two Live Brew Crew. In it, infielder Scooter Gennett and catcher Jonathon Lucroy brew – and more critically, sample – large amounts of stovetop ale and then extol its (hip-)hoppy virtues in scandalous, ’90s-style rhymes before an earnest group of Milwaukee Junior Leaguers.

Papi ’N Scorey: What a Ruling!

To Fox comes the season’s hottest new comedy, starring Ving Rhames as Red Sox slugger David Ortiz and Michael Cera as the team’s official scorekeeper, “Scorey” Scoreotimus, a timid young man who wears an MIT bowtie and Rudolf Lipschitz suspenders. In the pilot, viewers watch as a mean old judge sentences Big Papi to serve as Scorey’s butler after the big DH gets in a car accident with former Yankees Ken Phelps and Danny Tartabull while they are en route to former Met Keith Hernandez’s book-signing for his sizzling new tell-all, I Kissed A Cigarette (and I Liked It).

The audience will howl, because there’s a laugh track, as an increasingly resolute Scorey gazes at one of Papi’s place settings and issues his hilarious catchphrase, “I rule that … an error!”

Jeets

In Jeets, a new offering from JeterTV, Derek Jeter stars as Jeets.

No additional information was available at press time.

Desert Grit/s

New to the Food Network this season is Desert Grit/s, in which Southern boy Wade Miley searches high – all the way to the summit of Humphreys Peak! – and low – all the way to the bottom of the Grand Canyon! – for a “decent bowl of grits somewhere, anywhere, in the state of Arizona.” Though determined and in fact “gritty,” Miley is unsuccessful through the season’s first six episodes, at which point the network changes the title from Desert Grits to Desert Grit in the acknowledgment that a plurality of the  porridge is now unlikely.

Will Miley find that one elusive grit?

If so, will he melt .0000000002 ounce of butter on it?

Grounds Control

In this scintillating comedy from NBC, Jason Castro stars as “Jay’s son, Castro,” the twentysomething son of a man named Jay who has raised his son to be the finest barista in all of Harris County, Texas. One night, while cleaning the coffee filter at a Houston Starbucks, Castro overhears a pair of nerdy computer nerds plan a hack attack on the internal database of the local baseball squad, known for reasons of legality and narrative as the Houston Castros.

When Castro goes to the Castros to inform them of the nefarious plan, he learns to his great surprise that Orbit, the team’s mascot, is his “real father.”

Says Castro, “I’ve never heard that, possibly because this is the first episode, and possibly because the espresso machine is really loud.”

What happens next is anyone’s guess! Because episode two is not yet written!

Dome Improvement

New to HGTV this season is Dome Improvement, in which the Tampa Bay Rays turn to the accepted science of phrenology in efforts to find a “really smart contractor, like, really smart” who will render unto Tropicana Field a series of significant improvements, such as an open kitchen and a theater room.

The Grime of the Ancient Mariner

Fresh – well, OK, not fresh – off his stint on the Discovery Channel’s hit show Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe hosts this probing new program on Spike. In it, the intrepid adventurer will plumb the depths of 37-year-old Joe Beimel’s septic system and clean the gunk from beneath 37-year-old Fernando Rodney’s washing machine. If the show has not yet been canceled, Rowe will remove both the mold and the mildew from the shower of Endy Chavez.

Rocky Mountain Hi

New to NatGeo this season is Rocky Mountain Hi, in which host Troy Tulowitzki and midseason replacement Josh Rutledge travel through the Centennial State in search of the ways by which natives greet each other.

Citi Feel

Slotted after Wipeout on ABC, this thrilling new reality show follows Lucas Duda, Eric Young and Jenrry Mejia as they wander blindfolded through the Citi Field concourses while using their hands, noses and tongues to locate and identify the ground beef that food-poisoned Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg this past summer. Watch as the helpless men stumble into old hot dog water and fall backward into the interesting paste created when ketchup meets leftover nacho cheese! A winner is declared when, after ingesting the aforementioned beef, the player navigates his way to the restroom and ultimately out again, whereupon he meets with officials from the Centers For Disease Control.

Surf’s Up!

In this imaginative new comedy from FX, John Krasinski stars as Matt Surf, a “washed-up” thirtysomething pitcher who, thanks to a new seaweed diet he discovered while accidentally swallowing a whole bunch of seaweed, finds new power in his right arm and quickly earns a midseason role in the Padres bullpen. Called upon with increasing frequency and to thunderous chants of “Surf’s up!,” Surf leads the Padres to their first postseason since 2006.

There’s just one problem: Surf’s new diet has also renewed the power in his … well, let’s just say he’s doing a fine imitation of ol’ Priapus. Can Surf overcome the embarrassment, especially in opposing parks where fans call him “Randy Johnson”? Can he find an athletic cup that provides both freedom of movement and satisfactory protection? And if called upon to bat, can he do so without getting hit by a pitch on a strike down the middle?

Crotch-ety Young Men

New to Bravo this season is Crotch-ety Young Men, a controversial reality show that follows a Philadelphia matchmaker as she tries to find true love or at least a romantic weekend for local males aged 19-35 who express their deepest emotions by grabbing their crotch and giving it a dramatic hoist.

Though married and thus ineligible from participation, Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon appears in the first episode as a sort of patron saint and/or father figure to the young men, supplying advice on just how far to spread the legs, just how deeply to bend the knees and just how powerfully to hoist the unit, telling them, “Lift, yes, but do not separate, as that will defeat the purpose, or at least part of the purpose, because, yeah, love is the thing.”

Bravo is playing it close to the vest but does reveal that in episode two, Jimmy M. of Center City gets slapped 1,732 times and punched twice.

Currently in development

Oakland: Not There There

Pirates of the Caribbean Vacation

National Lampoon’s Lampoon Nationals

Dodgers Blew


John Paschal is a regular contributor to The Hardball Times and The Hardball Times Baseball Annual.
11 Comments
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#KeepNotGraphs
9 years ago

So THIS is where NotGraphs is moving to?

Sort of like when Arrested Development landed on Netflix.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  #KeepNotGraphs

Indeed!

And by coincidence, I am actually narrated by Ron Howard.

Sean L.
9 years ago

Nice work! Just like Descartes once said, ” What you lack in quality you make up for in quantity.”

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Sean L.

Nice comment!

And might I say that what you lack in civility, you make up for in assholery.

Next time, I will write a piece that is twice as long so that you might be double the a-hole.

Sean L.
9 years ago
Reply to  John Paschal

Good to see that you can take a joke. And I don’t mind stretching my assholery to higher levels. Looking forward to your next article.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  John Paschal

That was a joke? Well, now you see how difficult it is to land a joke.

Or perhaps the fault is mine, for failing to understand the joke. That happens, too.

curshinator
9 years ago

This was great. Also I think Dodgers Blew should be a real thing because there is no content on their SNLA channel that no one can watch.

curshinator
9 years ago

This was great. Also I think Dodgers Blew should be a real thing because there is no content on their SNLA channel that no one can watch.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  curshinator

The comment so nice he said it twice! Thanks, curshinator, for being double the nice person.

And regarding the Dodgers and TV, you make a good point. I’ll contact network execs and make the pitch. I’m thinking Wilford Brimley as Tommy Lasorda, but apart from that, casting is wide open.

Jason
9 years ago

So many gems. I enjoy that at a base level so much of this is crotch humor, so appropriate for our fair pastime. Also, I had entirely forgotten about The Aristocrats! What a joke that was.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason

Thanks, Jason. It’s not often — not often enough — that I see the words “crotch humor” and “The Aristocrats!” in one comment.