Keeping it Brockmire

New IFC series puts irreverent spin on sports anti-hero

Most sports fans, at one time or another, have probably wondered if professional announcers (for baseball especially) actually speak with the exaggerated style in real life that they use behind the microphone. The assumption, of course, is that they don’t. 

“Brockmire” has fun with one washed-up sportscaster who proves that assumption wrong.

He goes so far as to use the job’s specific lingo in his everyday vernacular, occasionally referring to himself in the third person through real-time play-by-plays. But “Brockmire” also goes beyond that surface quirk, following the title character as he attempts to get his life back on track after a rather public fall from grace and decade-long hiatus.

Based on a popular “Funny or Die” short, “Brockmire” is IFC’s latest half-hour comedy. It stars Hank Azaria, whose voice is instantly recognizable to any fan of “The Simpsons” (he’s behind multiple characters in that pop culture staple). 

It’s 2007, and Jim Brockmire is having a meltdown in the middle of a Kansas City Royals game he’s announcing. In a whiskey-fueled stupor, Brockmire describes how he caught his wife having sex with another man, weaving the graphic details between balls and strikes, all in his iconic voice. Suffice it to say, it’s his last game as a professional.

Fast-forward 10 years to the present day. After wandering the earth in a prolonged personal descent, he discovers that his infamous last call has been a viral Internet sensation and he’s become a cultural touchstone. “Keeping it Brockmire” means something akin to “keeping it real.” To capitalize on that notoriety, the owner of a barely-professional D-league baseball team (Amanda Peet) hires Brockmire as announcer. She hopes his unfiltered candor will attract fans and boost the prospects of the team, which is close to folding.

Politically incorrect, adults-only comedy ensues.

The construct is essentially “Bull Durham” for TV (likely the show’s logline pitch, pun intended), but instead of a past-his-prime catcher at the center it’s an announcer at the same stage of life. The team is called the Frackers, that censor-free option de jour for the F-word, and it’s a blatant tip to the profane nature that the series embraces. Clueless Brockmire, who hasn’t been on a computer once in the last decade, spews sexism, misogyny, and homophobia, even during games, but that allows for edgy humor without a mean or bigoted streak.

The first three episodes show steady growth. The pilot has a good deal of setup to do, and it’s a bit uncertain of how dark it wants to go. It focuses on its three central characters: Brockmire, Jules (the team owner), and Charles, a young happy-go-lucky Frackers assistant and self-branded Internet nerd with no acumen for baseball. The second episode keeps that focus, but also prematurely leaps into territory one would’ve expected a bit further down the road. 

Episode 3, “Kangaroo Court,” expands into the clubhouse, and this is where “Brockmire” starts to find its groove both as a show and a character. Brockmire lacks a family, and when tension escalates between two sides of the team, it creates an opportunity for an ad hoc family to be forged, while also tapping in to the broader ensemble’s potential.

Azaria and Peet are first-rate talents who work well together, but they don’t quite have the chemistry the show needs (although that could change). As Charles, Tyrel Jackson Williams has a natural charisma that’s instantly endearing, and Hemky Madera is the show’s clutch DH as Pedro Uribe, the Frackers’ fat, aging veteran. 

There are other layers, too, from cold-open flashbacks of Brockmire’s troubled history to a billion-dollar oil company run by Jules’ ex-boyfriend that looks to squeeze the Frackers out of business and acquire their land. IFC has already ordered Season 2, and it’s easy to see why. The show’s creative team has laid a foundation that expands a one-note sketch into an exploration loaded with comic, character, and possibilities.

For more from Jeff, read his review of ‘Personal Shopper.’