Tag Archives: j.p. ricciardi

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 9

STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 9
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 | EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7 | EPISODE 8

LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in 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

FRED WILPON’s office. He’s sitting across the desk from RAY BARTOSZEK, a rotund, bald man of Eastern European extraction in a garish suit. They are laughing together when DAVID EINHORN walks past the open office door. He stops in his tracks and looks inside. The two men shoot each other strained glances. EINHORN stalks off, looking angry and almost tearful.

Cut to: SANDY ALDERSON’s office. He stands at his window, looking out on the field contemplatively as groundskeepers water it. EINHORN bursts in.

EINHORN
I’m being pushed out!

ALDERSON
Nice to see you, too.

EINHORN
Do you know that Wilpon’s in his office right now, talking to Ray Bartoszek?

ALDERSON
No, I didn’t know that, for despite all evidence to the contrary, I have not yet been granted omniscience.

EINHORN
Bartoszek was the guy Wilpon talked to about investing in the team before he chose me. Now he’s got him in his office and they’re laughing it up like a bunch of…laughing guys! Do you know what this means?

ALDERSON
Someone told a humorous anecdote?

EINHORN
It means I’m being pushed out! Wilpon wants another investor in this team!

ALDERSON
So? He’s not going to have majority control like you do.

EINHORN
I don’t have majority control! I don’t have any control! I just have exclusive negotiating rights with Wilpon. Except, I kinda forgot to negotiate anything. Officially, I don’t own anything yet, and Wilpon’s gonna sell it out right from underneath me!

ALDERSON
So you’ve been calling the shots for this team, making trades, taking us on team-building conferences, and you don’t even own the team yet?!

EINHORN
I was gonna take care of it, but my brother was in town for a few weeks, and then there was that day I had to pick up a chair I bought on Craigslist…I got a lot on my plate, okay! I need you to fix this, pronto!

ALDERSON
Why? You just told me you’re not officially in charge of anything. Why do I need to do what you say when I have so many other things to take care of? Just this morning I found out my second baseman will be featured on an upcoming episode of Hoarders.

EINHORN
Well…all the fun times we’ve had, for one thing.

ALDERSON
Like when you traded for the most expensive player in baseball behind my back, then filled him with enough drugs to kill Keith Richards.

EINHORN
Only some of those words are true! C’mon, I thought you loved solving crises!

ALDERSON
I don’t love it, I’m just incredibly good at it.

EINHORN
Sandy, please, I need your help. You’re the closest thing I have to a friend right now. Everyone else I know is either indicted or in mutual funds.

ALDERSON
That’s rough, mutual funds. [begins to walk EINHORN out the door] All I can tell you, David, is that a business partnership is like a relationship.

EINHORN
Because you pay for it with cash and hate each other?

ALDERSON
No, because every now and then you have to rekindle the spark. Why did you and Wilpon do business in the first place? Remember that, and you’ll find the way to get back in his good graces.

EINHORN
What if I can’t think of it?

ALDERSON
You can ask J.P., or Paul, or Carlin. They’re all top-notch assistants who can help you with your problem when they’re not managing the incredibly difficult job of keeping a ball club together.

EINHORN
And what if they can’t help me?

ALDERSON
Then maybe you and Wilpon shouldn’t have been together in the first place. David, I’m sorry, but I need to be alone right now.

ALDERSON gently pushes EINHORN out of his office and shuts the door. EINHORN looks worried as J.P. RICCIARDI and PAUL DEPODESTA walk by.

EINHORN
What’s with Sandy? He normally loves to solve problems like this.

RICCIARDI
He’s been a bit on edge lately. He gets like that every now and then.

DEPODESTA
Best to just wait it out. A genius mind like that needs a break from time to time.

Cut to inside ALDERSON’s office. He’s staring out the window again. From a nearby corner, an apparition of ALDERSON’S FATHER emerges, dressed in army fatigues and a GI helmet.

ALDERSON
I thought I told you to leave me alone.

FATHER
You never listened when I told you to get a haircut, ya damn hippie, so now I’m returning the favor. You know why I’m here, son–to berate you into relapse

ALDERSON
I’m not doing that.

FATHER
It’s right in your desk drawer. Why do you have it if you don’t plan on using it? You want to use it, you weakling!

ALDERSON clenches his eyes, grasps his temples and tries to massage the pain away. FATHER chuckles.

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 9 →

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 8

STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 8
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 | EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7

LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in 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

The front office, late at night, a manic scene. Assistants scurrying left and right from one end of the office to the other, clutching papers, yelling on cell phones, scribbling on dry erase boards. Caption: 48 HOURS TO DEADLINE. The camera pans through this chaotic scene, circling around random figures, for at least five minutes before proceeding into SANDY ALDERSON’s office. His assistants J.P. RICCIARDI and PAUL DEPODESTA are sitting on a large couch, each huddled over laptops with cell phones clenched in their shoulders. MACKENZIE CARLIN stalks the room, moving index cards around on a cork board and reviewing printouts. ALDERSON stands in the middle of them all, fielding every query calmly but firmly. The only person who looks nervous is DAVID EINHORN, who sits in an office chair and grabs on to a glass of scotch for dear life.

CARLIN
[handing over some papers] These trade proposals just came in.

ALDERSON
[scans each page and hands them back one by one] Pull the trigger, pull the trigger, hold your fire, keep the safety on, squeeze the trigger halfway and see if they flinch.

DEPODESTA
The Dodgers are on the phone. They want to know if they can have a second baseman on credit.

ALDERSON
Tell McCourt he needs someone with a decent credit score to cosign the loan. And make sure it’s not a psychic.

RICCIARDI
The office is getting antsy because we’re running out of food.

ALDERSON
Call up the kitchen and order up another 72 pizzas, 15 pounds of lo mein, and a small vat of Red Bull. And just a green salad for me. No radishes.

EINHORN
Jeez, Sandy. This trade deadline stuff is insane. I used to work on Wall Street, but this makes the stock market floor look like Girl Scout jamboree.

ALDERSON
Of course it does. You traders were just creating the financial future of our nation; we’re building a ball club here. Also, Girl Scouts don’t go on jamborees.

CARLIN
Yes they do.

ALDERSON
J.P., find out if Girl Scouts go on jamborees.

RICCIARDI
I’m on it.

EINHORN
Any of this balancing act going toward getting rid of our closer? Your predecessor gave him a contract option with an irrevocable 12-year extension and double-super no-trade clause that vests if he reaches 75 innings pitched. If that’s activated, we can say goodbye to resigning Grant Linwood, or anyone else for the next decade.

ALDERSON
No, David I was not aware of that because I’ve been living under a rock since I took this job, and I’m also blind, and I can’t read any of the newspapers who’ve been talking about it every day since spring training, and also I was born yesterday on the back of a turnip truck.

EINHORN
Alright, you’ve got the snark covered. How about some leads for a trade?

ALDERSON
We’re doing everything we can. The only thing that won’t help is worrying about it. My experience tells me these kinds of things tend to work themselves out. My mother always said, “For every old sock, there’s a shoe.”

EINHORN
That’s great. We’re on the brink of financial collapse and your solution is downhome folksy wisdom from your mother.

ALDERSON
Not a solution, David. Just a coping mechanism.

EINHORN
Until you can come up with more than that, I’m gonna have to tell our manager to keep the closer out of games.

ALDERSON
That would be a great way to sic the players’ union on us. We can’t keep him on the bench if we ever want to sign another free agent again. We have to just keep calm and carry on.

CARLIN
[handing over paper] The Yankees want our top prospect in exchange for an autographed picture of Kevin Maas.

ALDERSON
[handing it back] Hold out for half off the truffle fries at NYY Steak.

EINHORN
Ugh, too much talking and thinking in here. I need some air.

EINHORN abandons his chair and his drink and leaves the office, entering the even more chaotic venue outside. He narrowly dodges assistants zipping all over the place and yelling at each other, until he bumps into a confused looking GRANT LINWOOD.

EINHORN
Grant? What are you doing up here?

LINWOOD
It started as a quest for more sunflower seeds, and somehow I found my way into this office. I just picked up a random phone and I think I may have accidentally traded for a few Houston Astros prospects.

EINHORN
Impossible; the Astros have no prospects. But I’m glad I ran into you, Grant. I think I’ve thought of a way we can help each other out.

LINWOOD
I’m all ears, as long as it don’t involve getting naked or moving furniture.

EINHORN
I wouldn’t dream of making my number one star move furniture!

EINHORN puts his arm around LINWOOD and they walk off.

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 8 →

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 6

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.

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 6 →