I guess I'm glad I was in LA instead of Boston for the MLB playoffs this year. I got to hear mutterings of a Dodgers-Angels "freeway series" (yeah, dream on, but sorry, this ain't New York). And that the Angels-Yankees series was kind of a squeaker, huh? Dodgers fans are almost like Red Sox fans and that is saying something. (You decide what.)
But the all-eastern World Series this week wasn't the baseball tournament that I was most excited about. That's because I'm a TV nerd and the Primetime Softball League exists.
That's right: if you were to show up to an anonymous baseball complex in Encino on any given Saturday during the regular TV production season, you would find the crew members, PAs, producers, writers and, very occasionally, cast members behind some of your favorite shows. And they would all be playing moderately competitive softball.
More than thirty shows are participating this year, according to the schedule on ptsl.net. There are dramas ("CSI"), soaps ("Brothers & Sisters"), sitcoms ("The New Adventures of Old Christine"), new shows ("Community"), news shows ("KCAL 9 News Central"), canceled shows ("Southland"), animated shows ("Family Guy"), talk shows ("The Jay Leno Show") and tween shows ("True Jackson, V.P."). The television industry may be tough to break into, but this softball league doesn't seem to be.
"HIMYM," of course, has a team, and I've managed to secure myself a spot on the non-existent second string, since there's a girl quota and not everyone can be trusted to show up on time. Going to the games has become a lot less awkward since I actually started remembering people's names. So far, I've only played one total inning (I was catcher and then I struck out), but I don't really feel like I fit in since I don't have a jersey.
The jerseys are probably my favorite part of the PTSL (besides, of course, the mere fact of its existence). Players for new shows like "The Middle" generally order some run-of-the-mill screen-printed t-shirts, sometimes with a joke on them. But big, established shows (or maybe just big, established teams) go all out. The team for "The Mentalist" rocks realistic baseball jerseys with the show logo stitched into the front. The embroidery on the jerseys for "Grey's Anatomy" reads "Grey's" in a retro script.
The "HIMYM" team (myself excluded) wears athletic shirts in an emerald green. On the front is the word "MOTHER" hovering over a skull and crossbones made of a clover and baseball bats. These are new, though; during season one, the shirts read "YOUR MOTHER" instead. Now, "Your mother!" is just the all-hands-in-the-middle cheer that we start and end games with. It must seem very intimidating.
My favorite jerseys of all are the in-jokey ones. Team "Sonny With A Chance" wears shirts emblazoned with the name of their "All That"-esque show-within-a-show, "So Random." And a couple weeks ago, as I was walking past one of the games, I wondered why one team's shirts all had the same name on the back until I realized — the name was "Bauer" and everyone also had the same number, 24.
In the TV industry, the competition in ratings and time slots and ad revenue is a game mostly followed by the networks and the studios, but that's not what these games are about. These games are about softball. Even if you live in La La Land and work in TV Land, you get to play softball on the weekend. The whole set-up may seem magical to me, but that's just my default state of mind here. The most magical part is how normal it is. Like, you know, one of those TV shows.
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Rebecca Goldberg is a junior majoring in American studies. She can be reached at Rebecca. Goldberg@tufts.edu
