General: Living in oblivion

Any of you, dear readers, who might have skimmed my biography know that my hobby, and hopefully my career, is writing and producing for film and television. May 13 my next short film, "Third Chance," is going to see release as part of a university film festival. Spending time in the editing bay putting it together, I thought about the film that almost was in its place -- the film about baseball I've been trying to write for something like my entire life.

The February weekend I ended up being forced to write the screenplay for "Third Chance" was also the weekend I was headed for Spring Training in Peoria, Arizona (which I wrote about in "Return of the Disaster Squad"). I wasn't particularly happy with the arrangement, because I prefer to write my scripts with an immense amount of film review and I prefer to spend my spring training unencumbered, trying to relax and put things in perspective. The two were pretty much mutually exclusive but I had no way to avoid them. It figures they'd come crashing together.

I kept the laptop away from the baseball fields, but I couldn't help but think of the fact that I'd been dying to write a baseball film since I started screenwriting back in 1992. Somehow, for me, none of the baseball films I've ever seen have done justice to the grandeur of the sport, and I'd always been searching for a moment to merge the two creative loves of my life and immortalize baseball in a tribute of my own.

This wasn't for lack of trying. In the late '90s, I'd written a treatment for a drama called "Black October," and I'd worked on the script for it about four years ago. In my head, Clark Johnson directed the story of Glenn McClendon, a pitcher played by Josh Charles, who had difficult decisions to make about making the show versus who he wanted to be. It was a pretty dark piece of work (the baseball precursor to ESPN's "Playmakers," maybe), and I really never felt comfortable with it. The project was shelved pretty quickly.

Last year, following the debut of "Playmakers," I looked at doing a television pilot entitled "The Season," in which audiences would follow the exploits of one season in the life of a small-market baseball team. It was pretty much taken directly from my own experiences, and subsequently I tapped a cast of actors who had earned my personal respect -- Josh Charles, Neal McDonough, and the man who'd later be my muse, Desmond Harrington, among them -- but that idea flamed out when I realized I'd need 26 actors to pull it off. Not only that, but when "Playmakers" flamed out, I grew to realize I didn't want to see my project suffer the same censorship.

So I gave up. I went on to other projects, doing a pretty successful comedy called "Lives Like Arson" and working on an American spinoff-continuation of my favorite British series, "Ultraviolet." Still, there's always been that nagging voice in my head, and it was back that February weekend.

After all, watching Brian Giles take swings in the batting cages, catching the dedicated optimism in Adam Eaton's eyes as he threw on the hill, how could I not be moved to write? I came out of every spring inspired to rise a better person, but as I kept telling myself, this magic had a story waiting to be told, if only someone could find the words, and I had the talent to try.

At least, I thought so, maybe, possibly, for a little while, if I squinted really hard to the left.

The closest I've ever gotten to writing anything actually good that involves baseball is in the ethereal fandom of fan fiction, where I did a take on what it would be like if I actually went to Padres fantasy camp. It was a screwball comedy, "Sports Night" on the playing field almost, and I actually managed to use the sense of humor that I supposedly have. In fact, an excerpt from it made the list of the top 10 funniest fanfic segments I have ever written:

We're watching game film from an earlier scrimmage in a hotel room, preparing for a game. Coach Alan Trammell on the tape, of us: They're insane. Everyone in the room starts laughing. Manager Bruce Bochy on the tape: Yeah, but it's a refined insane. More laughter. I was halfway to a drink of Coke and am grateful I stopped in mid-motion. Brian (again) wasn't so lucky and swallows quickly. Jake Peavy: It makes you wonder why he let us borrow this tape. Trevor Hoffman: He probably forgot he said it. Somehow, I doubt you will. Me: Of course not. It'll become our new slogan. We can put it on T-shirts. It's like that 'But it's a dry heat' thing. Laughter ensues. Brian Lawrence: I just realized something - you know, the new guys don't have any film to watch. Ron Gant: It's okay. We'll learn from your mistakes. Deivi Cruz: Yeah, Ron, make them real happy they got us and not Klesko. I snort as I'm passing the bag of Cheetos across to Brian, who says "I think there was a rule against that" without taking his eyes off the screen. Mark Kotsay: Yeah, it's called "the rule of phenomenally unbalanced ass-kicking". We already took all the good players.

I admit that reading that manuscript still makes me laugh, but it's not something that's going to go down in history, especially since that was 2002 and four of the people in that scene aren't even around anymore. It does, however, present an interesting question: if I'm such a good writer, why when it comes to baseball am I left naming characters after players but unable to actually write about the sport? (Fictionally, of course.)

I realized in Peoria that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could condense eighteen years into five minutes, or even a moment of that into five minutes, in a way that would make me believe I'd answered the call.

Maybe, though, it's supposed to be that way. There's no way I'm going to be able to put eighteen years of memories in a frame that's going to make me satisfied, and it's not just because I'm a perfectionist. How can I expect to complete its cinematic moment in the sun if the greatness of the game itself is not yet complete?

We'll just call it a work in progress.