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Pasadena, Calif.

If you could see everything that happens behind the scenes of your favorite team, would you really want to?

Do you want to see the defending World Series champions turned into a reality show?

Showtime will be doing just that. The pay-cable network has announced a "one-hour unscripted series that will give viewers a 360-degree view into the fascinating world of professional baseball via the 2010 World Series champion San Francisco Giants," according to David Nevins, Showtime's president of Entertainment.

"We've already begun filming at home with some of the key characters in the offseason," Nevins said. "And we'll continue to embed with the team over the course of the next 10 months in an attempt to capture the entire organism of the club — the players, the manager, the club ownership, as well as the wives, girlfriends, and parents who are usually the unseen part of the story."

The wives and girlfriends? Really? Does that seem like a good idea?

This could quickly turn into "The Real World: AT&T Park." Of even something akin to "Jersey Shore."

OK, that seems highly doubtful. Not because there won't be any bad behavior to film, but because this will not be an independent production. The show have the cooperation of both the Giants and Major League Baseball, and it will be produced by MLB Productions. So if the truth is particularly unflattering, it will get edited out.

Nevins insisted that the folks at MLB are "interested in really telling an honest story," but that seems highly unlikely. Unless that story is squeaky clean. And, if it's squeaky clean, that makes for bad reality TV.

This is not exactly a new idea. The NFL has been doing it with "Hard Knocks" for several years. Produced by NFL Films, of course. And, while that show has had its moments, no real scandals have arisen from it.

Scandals do arise from more than a few reality shows. When the subjects of those shows haven't had any editorial control, that is.

And a real reality show seems antithetical to any team.

If you're a BYU fan, would you have wanted cameras in the locker room after the Cougars lost to Utah State on Oct. 1? And would you have wanted to watch as Coach Bronco Mendenhall fired his offensive coordinator?

If you're a Utah fan, would you have wanted cameras following the U.'s basketball team and its coach, Jim Boylen, as they suffered through their longest losing streak in 60 years? Would you have wanted to be in the locker room after the blowout loss to BYU — in the Huntsman Center?

If you're a Jazz fan, would you have wanted cameras in the locker room to see Coach Jerry Sloan after … well, after just about any game?

More importantly, would fans of any team want their rival fans to see any of this?

You can adapt the old cliche — making a team is like making sausage; you don't want to see it in progress.

Yes, we can have too much information.

That may seem like a strange stance from someone who has decried the coach-speak of interviews and the pablum we're spoon-fed in coaches shows. But the thought of a team — any team — being turned into something akin to "Jersey Shore" is sort of sickening.

Unless, perhaps, that reality show is about a team I particularly hate …

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune. His column on sports on TV appears Wednesday. Contact him at spierce@sltrib.com .