MLB: I'd Rather See Another Taxi Cab Confession

It's Wednesday night, sitting at home, watching some quality premium cable. I know it's premium because it costs me a lot more money than CNN. A glance at the schedule tells me one of the greatest shows in TV history, cable or otherwise, is on in a few. The Larry Sanders Show. I flip around to kill a little time, and stumble across the polar opposite of cable's greatest triumph.

"Arliss". Ugh.

By nature I hate vanity projects. In "Forget Paris" Billy Crystal plays a NBA referee. What an amazing coincidence! I hear he likes basketball. His next movie is about Mickey Mantle, who through another masterstroke, was one of Billy's idols. I'd look for it soon on a 3 o'clock flight to Boston.

Crystal is not alone on this, he just happens to be more obvious about it. Actors have fawned over athletes since the wax cylinder. Athletes share a similar interest in acting or how else could we have seen the gift that Shaquille brings to the screen?

In most cases, it's a blip. A guest shot on a show, or courtside seats at a Knicks game. The public usually doesn't have to endure it for years on end. If "Arliss" were on broadcast TV, it would have been gone by the third commercial, but cable has a way of coddling it's ugly stepchildren. I think in some leather-covered executive's office, he sees great promise in a series about a smarmy agent and his wacky office staff. Or he sees free tickets from the numerous "Guest Athletes."

Robert Wuhl is a confessed sports junkie, and I'm sure any junkie would love to sit down with Dan Marino and chew the fat. I'd love to hear what is going on in Mike Modano's head going down the ice. Actually I wouldn't. I hate hockey. You get the point.

The series itself has worn thinner each year. I checked it out the first couple of years, and marveled at how little it takes to fill a half-hour. You get a borderline sports star, itching for a SAG card, you make up a little story about him and his sport, and you swear a lot. It is after all cable.

In one episode, a home run hitter is inching toward his 500th homer, and the race is on by Arliss and his crew to milk it for all it's worth. Because he's an agent, get it? Well, not to spoil it for you, but in the end a bullpen coach catches it and wants a whole mess of money because he doesn't get paid as much as the slugger. See, that was a half-hour!

While the stories themselves are barely above public access, what make it all the more frightening are the athletes. Their agents want to get them on the show to flex their acting muscle and show the world that Gary Carter* isn't the only ex-athlete to make his mark in film. More often than not, you get to see that as an actor, Grant Hill is an excellent shooting guard. Roger Clemens showed us his performance in "Kingpin" wasn't a fluke. Don't ever ask about Juwan Howard.

At some point, someone should stop this. In the closing moments of the episode before "Larry Sanders", Arliss sent his star pitcher to a hypnotist who forces his patients to...ummm...gratify him without their knowledge. See, he did it to win a bet, and the only way to win the bet was to have the pitcher see his hypnotist. Arliss knew it meant that the pitcher would go through this, but he had to win back his favorite wooden leg.

The pitcher threw a perfect game. Boy, if he only knew. Because he had to...with the hypnosis guy...and...the wooden leg.

It took back-to-back Larry Sanders to make me forgive HBO for that.


*1996-The Last Home Run---Look it up.