ST. LOUIS — What if I told you there was a show out there that could cure- or at least calm- your baseball blues, and make you laugh out loud? Is this something you would be interested in knowing about? If the answer is yes, scroll on and let's talk about IFC's "Brockmire," currently in its fourth and final season.
Hank Azaria is one of those actors who doesn't get enough credit for a versatile and credible career, someone you should know about more. Here, playing the seasoned baseball play-by-play radio voice, aka an "agent of chaos" known as Jim Brockmire, Azaria gets to put all his various talents to perfect use, creating a character that is unruly blunt yet addictive. You can't wait for what comes out of his mouth next, but you also fear it at the same time.
When we first meet Brockmire in the pilot episode, he's set to go off live on the air about his cheating wife. In the middle of a broadcast, Brockmire breaks down in vivid detail what exactly he saw when he came home and found his wife in bed with another man. Azaria's acerbic way of delivering dialogue makes it all work, making you laugh and cringe at the same time. You instantly imagine St. Louis Cardinals radio legend Mike Shannon giving his account of a night on the town, and that makes you laugh harder. What if your hometown voice did this? Along with creating organic humor, Azaria makes you feel for a guy who is constantly blindsided by his poor choices in women, which usually comes from an overindulgence in alcohol and drugs.
Brockmire gets a shot at redemption when he takes the mic for Jules James' (a wonderful Amanda Peet) minor league team in Morristown. It's there that Jim meets his match in the equally sharp yet troublesome mind of Jules and the savvy business mind of his assistant, Charles (Tyrel Jackson Williams). It's here where he begins his redemption, but this is a tour that will hit many bumps on the road as Jim falls back into chaotic quarters due to the consumption of drugs, tons of rye whiskey, and sometimes even the rabid impulse to do the right thing.
This is Azaria's best work. No contest. He makes Brockmire oddly relatable while being this outlandish yet well-spoken and to-the-point baseball mind. The actor co-wrote the scripts with creator Joel Church-Cooper, and they roll off the tongue like David Mamet if he tried writing comedy. Long-winded speeches about the depravity of Florida with the occasional shot at Christopher Nolan's movies, Jim leaves no stone unturned and even hurls a few at his co-stars. But you keep watching, and that's because Azaria finds a way to ground him amidst the crazy antics he pulls off.
Jules is Peet's finest work as well. She's the female fireball equal to Brockmire's rapid-fire monologues. The water for his oil, which when combined creates great television. Watching this two onscreen together is like watching the championship round of relationship bickering. Two people that were put on Earth to be together, but only if the room is on fire with their indecision and bad choices. Peet digs into the comedy and doesn't hold back.
While he doesn't get the amount of juicy ammo that the two leads do, Jackson does make a dent in a role that could have been window dressing. The actor makes it unique and original, giving Charles a voice in a show full of words and phrases. He's the young businessman who helps Jim more than anyone stay afloat in the game due to his ability to make Brockmire's lunacy a brand and something people need to listen to and get more of. Handing Brockmire a bottle of Sazerac and a microphone is like handing Jimmy Page a guitar and empty lyric book. He has a need to impose his will.
But what makes "Brockmire" so good is its sincere love for baseball. This is not weak and poorly written frat humor that relies on gags and gross-out jokes. The show cares and promotes baseball in all its glory, revealing Brockmire to be a true old school fan of the game. He doesn't like the owners because they don't really know or care about the game and its history. He props up the remaining original aspects of the game that made it great in the first place.
There's a scene in Season 3 where Brockmire is visiting a former player turned premiere announcer who is sick (guest star J.K. Simmons). The two characters have despised each other for years but as Simmons' Mack finds his days running out, the ice melts and the two men sit back and reminisce about the game. Brockmire referring to stadiums as cathedrals that were open during the night and day while Mack talks about being paid to play a game. It's a well-written sequence where baseball is championed and not belittled. Weaker shows would have forfeited the respect for a game for good laughs, and the effect would have brought the show down. "Brockmire" never does that.
It is in these storytelling moments where Azaria and Church-Cooper show their true intentions here: a show with a true affinity for the game that functions equally well as a comedy. They take the game as serious as they do the comedy. There are not many shows that can make you spit up a drink one moment and get heavy during the next, and most certainly not a sports-themed series.
In its current fourth season, Jim finds himself being put up for the MLB commissioner job in a futuristic climate where the world has descended to chaos, global warming has taken over, and interest in the game has decreased. Sound just a little familiar? In one scene, Brockmire calls St. Louis "one of the last habitable cities" and refers to Washington University as "the Harvard of the Midwest." This season, the show has taken a creative turn upward, combining a pandemic-like worldwide condition with other creative features, thus showing the impact on the game. Even as it gets to the end, the writers still aim high.
The fourth season still has the usual series flavors, like Brockmire unleashing his usual rants/tantrums, like one aimed at a co-worker who doesn't want to use deodorant due to the chemicals involved in its making. "I don't care if it's laced with arsenic, you wear it!" Let’s just say Jim uses a certain word to hammer home his point. In another sequence, he takes down a room full of greedy owners who need to adapt. Only Azaria could pull a sequence where he accuses one owner of a crime and another of war profiteering and family incest.
The jewel in "Brockmire" is handling touchy subjects with sharply written comedy and adding in wonderful guest turns from George Brett and Joe Buck, who willingly take shots at themselves. This show is in the vein of "Major League," but with better writing.
It is dirty humor yet never feels recycled or carried over from the last season. Azaria's manic-mouth baseball mind simply says all the things most are too afraid to say-and he makes it very funny. I'm laughing just thinking about it. At his heart, Jim Brockmire loves the game maybe a little too much.
In a time where a lot of things have been taken away, "Brockmire" gives a lot back to the viewer. If there was ever a show for a baseball fan who has a love for edgy humor, this is your need-to-binge series.
*"Brockmire" is available on IFC and can be purchased on Amazon Prime. It is available in portions on YouTube TV and Hulu. Each season runs 8 episodes long. There is plenty of language and some nudity. This is not a kid show, more like the adult series you watch after the kids go to bed.
