Clubhouse

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.

I've seen three episodes of "Clubhouse", and I honestly have mixed feelings. I think Jeremy S. has real talent (he's 15 for cryin' out loud!) But, the script has a few loose ends. I'm just not seeing a connection between these two teens. I like the family connection between Pete and his Mom, it's genuine. Pete driving the Ferrari was a bit much, though i bet he enjoyed it. LOL. Who wouldn't? Anyway, I just can't see what age group this show is appealing to. I guess everyone, not sure though. So bottom line: can't see a bright future for this show, but I still have hope. I'll be watching this Saturday to see if my opinion changes. It's got a touch of everything, but it's just not enough. It could still change, though. Good luck to "Clubhouse"!!

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.

The young actor reminds me of actor Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker in the "Star Wars" films. Does anybody else see they resemble each other? I actually thought it was the same actor! This was a fine series. Some stories were corny but several were thought provoking. Two episodes come to mind. In one, Pete sees a player using drugs. He is seen and threatened by the player. Pete must decide whether to keep his mouth shut or tell. He decides to tell. He keeps his job and also wins the respect of the team. Another good episode was when Pete and his friend must undergo an initiation. Pete showed his integrity when his friend got hurt. This was a good series and like "American Dreams" on NBC, got canceled.

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.