Clubhouse

I've watched about 3 episodes of this show, and too much emphasis is being placed on the kid. How much do 16-yr. olds know about the fast-paced world of sports? This is too family-friendly, I wish this would be on cable TV, to show the REAL underbelly of baseball, especially the fame, potential for substance abuse, the bad behavior, etc. For example, could you see a 16-yr. old batboy take life lessons from Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden? Not hardly!

Clubhouse soft sells baseball trials and tribulations and turns it into this softball, cushy, feel-good family show. Dean Cain made a another career boo-boo, when he starred in this show. Maybe if he made peace with Teri Hatcher, maybe he could have a spot on the MORE successful "Desperate Housewives".

This show has a few clichés and a few over the top, Dawson's Creek-like moments (a 16-year-old talking about way back when life made sense?), but overall it seems like a decent show. Most of the characters seem very real, and the story seemed to move along well in the pilot - ending with a good lesson in the end. I just hope every episode doesn't turn out to be life-altering like the first, that would just be too much drama for this vehicle. Jeremy Sumpter does an excellent job as a teenager with a passion for baseball, I believe a lot of us could relate to his awe and sometimes tunnel vision for the team that he always wanted to a part of.

Oh wow, I didn't expect our Peter Pan to get abused with hazing when he becomes a batboy in Clubhouse. But that's what happened tonight on the show that I watched. I hate seeing Jeremy on the punished end from a bunch of cruel boys who most bizarrely terrorized Jeremy and his buddies. This is so terrible. I realize Jeremy was quite young to be a lead in a feature film, like Peter Pan, but I say make Jeremy the star of more feature films and get him out of TV -- if the writers are going to make him the butt of teenage idiots getting their jollies by humiliating Jeremy. I much better liked Jeremy as the lead character of Peter Pan, where HE led a bunch of boys, and where HE fought the bad guys and won, and where HE taught people to fly, etc., etc. This Clubhouse is getting pretty depressing, what little I have seen, and the Christopher Lloyd character comes off as a slimy senior citizen who shouldn't be in the same room with our sweet Jeremy. The mother is ugly, and the sister should be taught some manners.

CBS pulled the plug on Clubhouse way too early. A friend gave me the book that Clubhouse was based on. It's called "BAT BOY" by a guy named Matt McGough who was actually a bat boy for the Yankees. It just came out a few months ago, after the show got cancelled (kind of weird timing). As good as the show was, the book is even better.

A lot of the stories from Clubhouse seem like they came straight from the book -- the prank the players pulled on Pete his first day of work, and the potato cannon, and meeting girls at Yankee Stadium, and lots of other inside stories about the Yankees locker room and growing up in New York. Not much about his sister Betsy the JD, but that was actually my least favorite part of the show by far.

I even met Matt at a reading he did in New York last weekend. He didn't know if they're planning on releasing Clubhouse on DVD. But he did say that the book has a website, www.batboybook.com, and that he'd try to post any update.

Ever since I discovered Jeremy Sumpter was the star of 'Clubhouse' I was hooked. I was excited for the premier, and it was amazing. I discovered that Jeremy isn't just super hot, but hes an amazing actor, too. He makes his character completely realistic and I love his facial expressions. When he was crying in the pilot, I cried too. The rest of the cast is amazing, too. Kirsten Storms' character; Betsy, adds humor to the show with her drinking problem and disregard for the rules. The only thing that annoyed be about the first two episodes, was how similar they were. In both, Pete was put in a situation where he has to decide whether to help the team, and possibly get in trouble, or stay out of it and become hated by them. If the show continues like this, I can see the ratings going down. Overall, Clubhouse is a great original show for everyone, its definitely different from the typical teen dramas. From the die-hard baseball fans, to the squealing fangirls, Clubhouse can be enjoyed by all.