STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
PILOT
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
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
Long tracking shot. We transition from ballplayers talking in front of their lockers to earnest reporters, through a long utility tunnel, and into the team’s lush executive offices. Audio: intermingled bits of in-game sound, post-game interviews, and the typical hustle and bustle of office life. Shot should last at least 7 minutes.
Suits scramble back and forth across a hallway lined with framed covers of old yearbooks, blown up photos of World Series celebrations, etc. SANDY ALDERSON emerges from his office and stalks down the carpet, trailed shortly thereafter by PAUL DEPODESTA.
DEPODESTA: You should look happier, considering tonight’s results.
ALDERSON: This is my happy face, you can’t tell?
DEPODESTA: The team came down from 12 runs down in the bottom of the ninth to win.
ALDERSON: There is no “winning” in this game, Paul.
DEPODESTA: I think there is actually winning in baseball, Sandy.
ALDERSON: We don’t play baseball, we play feeding frenzy. Win or lose, you have to face the reporters who want to know why this guy bunted in the third, or when you’re gonna trade for an ace to bolster the pitching staff. Win or lose, they’re back again the next night, hungry for more. If Sisyphus was alive today, he’d be a GM.
DEPODESTA: If it’s all so pointless, just quit.
ALDERSON: Everything’s pointless, Paul. Might as well do hardest pointless thing there is.
DEPODESTA: Is that what you learned in the Marines, Sandy?
ALDERSON: [shoots a withering look]
DEPODESTA: Sorry, Sandy. I forgot you don’t talk about, well…