‘Cleat Chasers’ is Really Going to be Something
By Justin Klugh
Welcome to ‘Cleat Chasers!’ It’s not on TV yet, but if you know anything about reality TV, you can probably guess the central themes. In that same vein, you can probably guess how culturally important it will be.
Let’s take a peak at the show’s inception before we get into the meat of its substance.
Get Some Media , the company behind the show, was founded by a “one-woman media juggernaut,” according to Forbes Magazine. Jenn Hoffman, who, despite a debilitating condition known as being a (self-described) “nerd,” was thankfully able to recover and build a career of posing sexily in front of cities, media juggernauting, and providing “unfiltered snark.” Those lucky enough to be blessed with the gift of snark know–it must be wielded with precision and care. No one knows this more than Hoffman, as her own personal snark helped her achieve massive success, like getting to be on “The Apprentice,” but it also cost her greatly, like that time she was kicked off “The Apprentice.” You also may remember her from famous film roles as “Party Girl,” “Friend #2,” and “Escort” in the upcoming Take Me Home Tonight.
Or maybe you probably don’t. But you will remember Jenn, and Get Some Media, when TV’s sexiest awful thing hits the airwaves at some point in the future and everyone either doesn’t realize it, is bored, or barfs.The premise is that some women love baseball so much that they prefer to only hook up/seek relationships with pro baseball players. And sometimes, the baseball players they have sex with are already married! Producers are already rounding up a cast in the Scottsdale, Arizona area to shoot the first season during Spring Training.
Don’t worry though, the show plans to feature the interesting lives of the ‘Cleat Chasers’ prominently, rather than the players.
"“The girls will go to any lengths to go to games and practices with the goal of sleeping with and getting material things from athletes as a notch under their belt.”“The reality show will focus on the women and the ‘cleat chasing’ lifestyle more than the players and their participation…”—RadarOnline"
Here are some of the emotions you’re probably feeling right now.
Appalled
You have morals, and are trying to raise kids in this crazy messed up world. The last thing you need is a TV program to come on while you’re napping and drag baseball, the one after school activity keeping your kids from being potential serial killers, through the trashy proverbial mud.
Isn’t this the basic premise of, like, four other shows already? If not, new nests of parasitic reality TV shows hatch inside the guts of television every week and start squealing and chewing away at its stomach lining. This one happens to involve baseball, so its especially terrible? Come on. We are probably a season or two away from a reality show about the people from “Strange Addiction” hooking up with the people from “Mythbusters” and hosted by one those things from “This House of Orange People.”
Disinterested
I mean, who gives a shit.
Really, Really Interested
They’re real people having sex with baseball players in real life!! Lock the kids in the crawl space, I literally have to see this or the fragile stack of quarters that is my psyche will tumble, and I will be forced to address myself.
But hold on now. Before you go casting judgment and assuming ‘Cleat Chasers’ is merely the next diseased slice of entertainment to slowly grow mold and die, maybe it’s time to examine the role of a cleat chaser in baseball. What does she do? What is she capable of? What is it about the glacial intensity of baseball that makes it’s players so desirable?
We start, naturally, on Facebook, where several alleged groups of cleat chasers and baseball players have corralled themselves. Here we have “Baseball Players and Cleat Chasers,” started by a Mississippi State alum and landscape architecture enthusiast. Then we have the somehow less subtle “baseball players and the cleat chasers who do us,” featuring a picture of what I think is a hog tied dude screaming while two other dudes give thumbs up.
The Bulldog describes his group nonchalantly.
"“Just a fun group… Nothing special bored on night and i made it. Invite anyone and everyone.”"
That doesn’t sound like the Facebook group description of a man whose seen the true, unbridled value of having a cleat chaser around! How could you let just anyone in, even those who are unaware of the phenomenon on which the group is based?
The second one, which has a lot of Notre Dame students on its roster, is once again more upfront.
"“this is for the girls and guys in and around cleats and cleat chasers.”"
Finally, a Facebook group I can relate to! Am I right, fellas?
*Looks for high-five; is denied*
But “for” them in what sense? Does the group bring them together with greater ease? Does it serve as a gallery of their exploits? Or is it, like any page on Facebook, just sort of… there… making information public that people will probably one day regret that everyone knows. It is the internet’s version of getting a tattoo under drunken circumstances. However, if the people I know who go to Notre Dame are any indication, the last thing any student at that school needs to worry about is consequences to their actions.
We’re getting off topic, and I apologize. What is the influence of cleat chasers on baseball, and does it warrant the respected glow that comes with having a reality TV series?
Thus far in our culture, cleat chasers have stretched into the realm of Facebook Groups, a definition on Urban Dictionary, and an apparel line advocated by Logan Morrison. Now that I think about it, the combination of those three things is probably how every reality TV show is born, except for the Logan Morrison part. These shows are usually standing on such flimsy legs, it would make perfect sense that their inspiration come from some of the most substance-lacking shells on the internet (again, that doesn’t include Logan Morrison).
Well, it’s clear that nothing can stop Get Some Media, so prepare yourselves to probably learn some filthy things about your favorite ball players that we until now have only assumed; or in one very specific case, known too much already.
I’m the last person to fault a group of people for going after baseball players. Citizens Bank Park security has my picture for that time I screamed myself hoarse at a bunch of fifth graders so I could get to the front of the line where Shane Victorino was signing autographs. But I guarantee nobody wanted to see that spectacle on their televisions.
And in the end, that’ll be the beauty of “Cleat Chasers:” It can only appear on your television.
But I mean, come on.
Who gives a shit.