When I first heard about the show Pitch, I have to admit I was rooting for the show to succeed.  I’m a baseball junkie, and I like everything about baseball.  While I don’t have an overt interest in the sport’s popularity, anything that helps increase the profile of the sport and draws more fans to it is a good thing.  When I found out Zack Morris was going to star in the show, I really wanted the show to succeed.  After hearing some negative reviews, I watched the first episode with some trepidation.

For starters, let’s note that this show has a greater chance to succeed because it is on Fox.  Due to Fox’s relationship with MLB, you get to have more bells and whistles than other shows.  Additionally, with their Fox Sports Network personalities, you get to have real sports talkers offer sports opinions like they would on their own shows.  It’s also called cross-promotion.  Right off the bat, we get snippets from Colin Cowherd and Katie Nolan giving their monologues about Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury).  Reactions to her first start would be woven through the show.

With it being on Fox, you also get John Buck and John Smoltz announcing her first ever game.  One thing I noted, aside from Buck’s and Smoltz’s reactions being really forced, wasthis seemed like an unusually subdued Fox coverage of the game.  As someone who watches baseball incessantly, I was expecting to see Kevin Burkhardt leading MLB Whiparound with Frank Thomas and Dontrelle Willis.  I expected to see Ken Rosenthal with a pink bowtie (fundraising for breast cancer) interviewing the manager Al Luongo (Dan Lauria) or the All Star catcher, face of the franchise Mike Lawson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar).  I understand this is a TV show, but if you want the hardcore fan like me to buy it as a baseball show, these are the bells and whistles that are expected.  In reality, this show isn’t for the diehard baseball fan.  This show really uses baseball and having the first female in a men’s professional sport as a vehicle to draw people to watch a drama.

That really became clear when you saw Baker throw her first pitch.  Her pitching ability was vastly similar to Tony Danza in Angels in the Outfield or Gary Busey in Rookie of the Year; that is, it wasn’t good.  The difference between those movies and this series was the baseball is supposed to be believable.  With her rotation, it just wasn’t.

You can normally brush that aside, but they really went out of their way to make it believable.  There was Fox rolling out Buck and Smoltz to do the broadcast.  There was a scene with her father telling her she needed to learn the screwball because no woman could compete with men without learning a trick pitch.  Most baseball fans would have assumed a woman would need to throw a knuckleball, but having watched John Franco‘s career, I could buy a woman succeeding in the majors with a screwball.  What I couldn’t buy was someone with her pitching motion succeeding in the major leagues.

That means that ultimately this show is going to rise or fall as a drama.  That was a mixed bag.

Instead of an agent, we see Baker going with a publicist (played by Ali Larter) over a superagent like a Scott Boras.  First off, this was another hit to the credibility of the show.  Secondly, the interactions Larter had with team brass and the like seemed slightly over the top.  As did the flirting between her and the general manager (Mark Consuelos).

Where the show settled in was the baseball interactions.  There was a funny exchange with Lawson regarding whether or not a teammate can slap her on the butt like they would any other teammate.  There was the team owner giving Baker the number 43 because it was one higher than Jackie Robinson‘s 42.  There was the discussion among the manager and the front office about this being a sideshow.  There was also the discussion in the clubhouse about not letting Baker’s call-up be a distraction and letting the team go out there and win some games.  Finally, there was the Bull Durham type moment between Baker and Lawson on the mound in her second start.  Overall, while the baseball part of the show failed, the talk surrounding the baseball played worked well.

Where the show truly worked was the interactions between Baker and her father (Michael Beach).  Like most Dads, he wants to see his son become a professional athlete.  With him having failed in the minors as a pitcher, he wants his son to be a big leaguer.  When he quickly realizes his son doesn’t have it, he pours all of his attention into making his daughter a major league pitcher.  You see flashbacks with him fighting to get her a shot and with him driving her to become a better athlete.  Watching the show reminded me of the interactions Mike Piazza described having with his dad growing up in his autobiography Long Shot.

In sum, Pitch worked as a drama using baseball as a vehicle so long as you did not have to watch any of the baseball being played.  Ultimately, while I was disappointed with different aspects of the show, there was enough there to justify tuning in for the second episode.  Hopefully, it will go as well as Baker’s second effort did against the Giants.

With the Mets off tonight, it might be a good opportunity to catch Pitch as its second episode airs tonight at 9:00 on Fox.