Just got off the phone with Betsy Thomas, executive producer of TBS' "My Boys," the best show about a fictional sportswriter who never works since "Everybody Loves Raymond."
I will be addressing this matter at length in a future newspaper column, but the short story is that Ms. Thomas would love to show more of the lead character, PJ Franklin, at work, but there simply isn't time in a nine-episode season focused primarily on her relationships with her male, poker-playing, beer-drinking buddies.
Fair enough. But how does Franklin have time to socialize at all during baseball season?
Thomas said she researched the matter before the show launched in 2006, including shadowing then LA Times baseball writer Steve Henson.
"I've chatted with many who say, 'I don’t travel all the time during the season; I don’t travel to all the games,"' she said. "But I've spoken to others who say you have no life. I think it depends."
Lennon? O'Brien? Davidoff? Heyman? Your thoughts?
Comments (7)
Gee Whiz Neil,
You certainly are a very important person. We just love reading your dopey posts about how hard you work, how you went to Cornell, and how you should have done something else with your life.
What we appreciate especially, though, is your misogyny, ethnic insensitivity and latent homophobia. All of this even as you declare your love daily for that worthless punk Carton.
Show some guts, Neil.
Neil, do you consider Michael Bunin one of the most underrated actors in the business?
I asked blog guru and all around workaholic Braves beat writer Dave O'Brien about this and he basically said this show is a piece of garbage that no baseball writer he knows could have been shadowed for this aweful show. And I have to believe him.
Neil,
I didn't even see your last line where you asked for thoughts. I'm assuming the O'Brien you had there is Dave so I hope he doesn't mind but here is his exact quote in is Braves/MIB blog when I asked him.
bravesfaninmetsland: the latter. there is very little about that show that is even remotely realistic.
I watched parts of two episodes last year. Saw enough. When one male sportswriter gave her a ball autographed by a current player as a gift, in the pressbox, I was incredulous. You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me. First of all, that’s about the last gift any sportswriter I know would want. Secondly, if a scene like that ever unfolded in a pressbox, they’d both be banished. Or at least humiliated by anyone who saw the grotesque event occur.
I was talking about Kat O'Brien of Newsday, not Dave O'Brien!
Kat is too busy taking phone calls from Hank.
When I was a beat writer, I was married (I'm still married), so the only time I went out drinking with the boys (and girls) was when I was on the road for work.