With the same premise as the 1976 film 'The Bad News Bears' starring Walter Matthau, Jackie Earle Haley and Tatum O'Neal, the television show revolved around the team's coach, Morris Buttermaker, played by Jack Warden.
As a former minor league baseball player, currently working as a pool cleaner, Coach Buttermaker gets upset after a client refuses to pay his bill and responds by driving the client's car into the sparkling clean pool. Buttermaker is given a choice of either "volunteering" to coach the Hoover Junior High baseball team or going to jail.
Coach Buttermaker chooses baseball over jail time and spends the entire series trying to teach a group of hapless kids how to play together as a team....
While coaching the team, the coach is under constant supervision from Principal Emily Rappant, played by Catherine Hicks. You may not recognize the name Catherine Hicks, but she played the mother on the WILDLY successful show '7th Heaven'.
The casting director for this show was able to pick up a fresh faced Corey Feldman (a favorite of Ally at Fourth Grade Nothing.... He sent her a letter!) for his first major acting role.... But other than that choice, I think think the casting director decided to cast the kids with the funniest names.... Gregg Forrest, Tricia Cast, J. Brennan Smith, Sparky Marcus, Rad Daly, Meeno Peluce, Shane Butterworth, and Kristoff St. John (who looked like a young Barack Obama) rounded off the team....
