STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 6
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
RELIVE THE EXCITING INAUGURAL SEASON!
PILOT | EPISODE 2 | EPISODE 3 | EPISODE 4 | EPISODE 5
LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise is the depths of deepest, darkest Queens. Along with his sharp-witted and adoring protégés, he fights off the seemingly endless series of controversies and crises that beset him while trying to run a sports team in the country’s most bustling metropolis, and still look fantastic while doing it. Can the pressures of such an important job crush this singularly talented and gifted individual genius?
ACT I
Press conference. SANDY ALDERSON stands at a podium, fielding questions from a clamoring throng of reporters as flashbulbs go off in his face.
ALDERSON: My answer to that question would be no, I have no philosophical opposition to a dog playing for a major league baseball team. As to the question of whether or not a dog has a soul, I think that’s more of a query for the church. Yes, you over there?
WORMWOOD: Tommy Wormwood, New York Herald-Gazette. What do you say to the charge that the team has struggled lately because it relies far too much on statistics, to the point of fetishizing them and relying on them above all else, eliminating Americans’ childlike love of the game in favor of a cold, calculating, robotic approach?
ALDERSON: Has someone actually charged us with that?
WORMWOOD: I will, in my scathing column to be published tomorrow!
ALDERSON: This is old news, gentlemen. I’ve been called a “stat-head” and a “numbers-freak” and a “brain-lover” ever since I became the first GM to calculate batting average in the late 1970s. If wanting data to build a better team makes me a “computer-humper,” then call me a computer-humper.
WORMWOOD: But the thing is you haven’t built a better team. This team is barely batting over .200, has no frontline starting pitching, and their bullpen is a cruel, twisted joke devised by a blind idiot god. Maybe your computer-humping has blinded you to the intangibles that make a winning team.
ALDERSON: First of all, I’m sorry I ever used the phrase “computer-humping.” Secondly, how could I possibly target intangibles when I’m building a team? An intangible is, by definition, indefinable. If something is indefinable, it can’t be truly identified or located. How can I be blind to something no one can see?
WORMWOOD: [long pause] Because stats…the problem with them, you see…Derek Jeter’s spin move…
ALDERSON leaves the podium as the reporter continues talking.
Cut to: Stadium tunnel. ALDERSON stalks toward his office trailed by J.P. RICCIARDI and PAUL DEPODESTA.
RICCIARDI: Are they giving out press credentials in Cracker Jack boxes these days? What was wrong with that guy?
ALDERSON: I’ve had much worse. You remember the press conference where someone accused me of being a Satan worshiper because I signed Jeremy Giambi?
DEPODESTA: Speaking of Satan, our most hated rivals are coming into town for the Mass Transit Series…
ALDERSON: Come now, Paul. That’s no way to talk about another team. It’s alright for fans to get fired up and angry and hit each other with rock-filled whiskey bottles, but as executives we need to be a bit more dispassionate.
DEPODESTA: You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, “and Cashman’s already here.” He called from his limo to let us know he expected an appropriate reception.
ALDERSON: Christ, already? Alright, we better go see what Ol’ Scratch wants.
