'The Franchise' Is Entertaining If You Are A San Francisco Giants Fan

The Franchise: A Season With the San Francisco Giants premiered on Showtime this past Wednesday to a national audience anticipating the fun and quirky World Series champions.

Of course, the main attraction to the Showtime series was, and will forever be, Brian Wilson. His outrageous act is impossible not to give at least a wry smile at when seeing him in a spandex tuxedo on national television.

Surprisingly, Wilson was not the main character in Episode 2 this past Wednesday. They did have to sneak in some cameos from him in order to please the demanding audience, but overall it was an episode surrounding the ups and downs that the team encountered during the first half of the 2011 season so far.

Cameras followed Matt Cain and his family, Pablo Sandoval and his weight loss, Jeremy Affeldt and his family, Brandon Belt's turmoil and Buster Posey's season-ending injury, among other stories.

I am sure most had a hard time watching the Posey/Cousins collision at home plate for the gazillionth time.

Overall, Showtime showed a decent behind the scenes view of the quirky misfits both on and off the field, and it was rather interesting to see if you are a Giants fan.

However, as much as Sandoval's weight loss program and Cain and Affeldt's families were entertaining to see off the field, I had to put myself in a position where I was not a gargantuan San Francisco Giants fan.

Would the rest of the country appreciate what a group of idiots and personalities the Giants really were? Would the stories even interest an audience of average baseball fans?

The truth is that it probably does not interest them.

Every team has the trials and tribulations of Cain and Affeldt's families, and every team goes through injuries that can shake a ball club. And if you do not live in San Francisco, you either love or hate Wilson.

What intrigues Giants fans is that we saw these players grow in front of our eyes last season when they took a bunch of misfits and turned them into World Series champions.

We were there when Brian Wilson did not have a beard, and we saw Sandoval when he was incredibly overweight. Some of us even saw Posey when he was in Single-A San Jose waiting for him to erupt onto the baseball scene.

However, we never saw what it was like on the road or in the locker room for these players, and that is why we could not take our eyes off of it on Wednesday night.

Everyone got a good laugh at Aubrey Huff's club dance on the MLB Network or Zito's yoga session (although that was not supposed to be funny).

How could you not at least giggle at a guy doing yoga over the San Fernando Valley from his West Hollywood Hills home, getting payed $126 million, talking about how he is unable to be a factor on this team?

Again, we witnessed that last season.

You better believe people will keep watching, though, at least Giants fans will.

Wilson's violin orchestra interview in sepia tint to the closing credits was enough for me to come back.

"And you're f@#*ing welcome....."