WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Television Series by Alan Nafzger

FREE BASEBALL MOVIE – Baseball Muse – 8-14-20 – WOMEN IN BASEBALL

“Women in Baseball” is a Major League Baseball detective-thriller television series.

WOMEN IN BASEBALL The show takes place in New York City, but also in MLB host cities as the show will focus on an MLB crisis management team (corporate detectives), made up primarily of women. The women work for the Commissioner of Baseball. The show will focus on the drama surrounding the league.

Each episode involves a suggested rule or policy change. Various “player behaviors” or “game situations” which if they came to light, might put baseball in jeopardy. However, a new investigative team are not just “fixing” embarrassing situations, they are also acting as “truth finders” and what they find always influences the direction baseball takes.

Film Reference – WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Charlie’s Angels (1976) meets NCIS (2003). Perhaps, with a tiny amount of A-Team (1983) thrown in for action and thrills. Eight Men Out (1988) as a movie searching for the truth.

WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Conflict – WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Each episode shows the conflict in every human activity, change vs. the status quo. There are liberals who want to change baseball (for any number of reasons). And there are the old-school conservatives who want the sport to remain exactly as it has been (also for a number of reasons). Sometimes, the new team’s report to the commissioner supports change and sometimes it supports the status quo.

Sharon Pope (Hispanic-Anglo mix – Women’s Softball)

The main character is Sharon Pope. Ms. Pope was the league’s first female general manager but who is now widely regarded as the best “soft-fixer” in baseball. She rescues professional baseball, weekly, and with decency, a combination of perceptiveness and self-discipline. She’s tricky and wily enough to discover the truth and she has just enough honesty to use what she’s learned properly. WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Sharon essentially has an obsessive personality. She works compulsively on all her cases and her tenacity is one of the reasons the Commissioner trusts her too intensely. She can get engulfed in periods of depression between investigations and is a fitness freak and is known to live in the gym. She has an in-depth knowledge of the game from following the MLB careers of her father and brother.

Sharon worked as Chicago Cubs GM for owner Antonio Ricketts, with whom she had an affair. After winning a World Series, the owner, who was her lover, told her he was just using her. The affair ended and Sharon resigned and took a position with MLB. She’s not known to have a current intimate or amorous relationship, but she has begun flirting again with both men (outside of baseball) and women (inside baseball). Will she become a bi-sexual? We will take that up in the final episode. WOMEN IN BASEBALL

She gets long with Cuss on every topic except politics. She’s on the left of the political spectrum.

Woodrow “Cuss” Rocker (rugged-individualist and Texan)

Former player, sexist, cowboy, and tough-guy. He has been the league’s chief “strong-arm fixer” from the past, but the league has adopted a kinder and more gentle approach now with a female lead investigator. Cuss doesn’t like being replaced, but he’s not going to quit. He is quick and smart-alecky like David Addison from Moonlighting (1985) and at times, lovable like Thomas Magnum from Magnum P.I. (1980). But, he can be a very violent man if someone messes with the sport. WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Cuss is primarily an opinionated brute like former MLB pitcher John Rocker. He comes to every case with a bias and wants to bull his way through it with brawn. Less brains and more brawn is the way he thinks. His catchphrase is “you’re overthinking this”. He always suggests the most aggressive approach.

Cuss is not “the heavy” but he is the “loyal opposition” the show needs. He is loyal to the women on Pope’s team, he just approaches things from an old-school former player point of view. He is hard-headed and often discourteous. However, he will beat the hell out of anyone if they interfere with Pope, the women, or the investigation. He has a heart condition that may, or might not, develop into a full-blown heart attack.

Cuss judges people by how they dress and what part of the country they come from. Also he despises anyone with no connection to baseball. He blames “1917 and Lenin” for all of society’s problems and is sometimes coherent about it. He loves the Republicans, no matter what! On election day, he travels home to Texas so he doesn’t have to vote in a blue state.

Cuss has a grudge he’s holding with every ex-player he comes across, and visa-versa. They may agree on various goals, rules, and policies, but he just can’t let the old rivalries go.

Abby Chu (Asian – Vollyball)

Abby Chu is an ambitious woman who works as an investigator in Sharon’s team and has served as the Oakland A’s Head of Business Operations. She solves cases with logic, math, and science.

Abby is married to Charles Putney, the most ambitious of the many sportswriters and he’s fully six inches shorter than Abby. She leaves him when he beats her in a drunken rage. Rather than call the police, she calls Cuss Rocker, the league’s seldom used strong-arm; Cuss beats Charles and puts his knee over the curb and breaks his kneecap. Abby chuckles every time she runs into Charles. Charles now uses a cane to walk and he’ll always limp. Charles still stalks her, using the guise he’s following up on a story. WOMEN IN BASEBALL

Sharon has helped Abby get the best divorce attorney in New York to help her get out of her marriage. Abby is extremely loyal to Sharon because she helped her get her life back together, but she gets angry with Sharon when she doesn’t act like the Sharon she knows, a woman who helps people.

Abby is best friends with Quinn Perkins and they share secrets. Abby believes the player Quinn is dating murdered a girl in Kansas years ago. She tries to persuade Quinn to leave him.

Abby has bad luck with men. The men she likes are either above her or under her in social status — billionaires or impoverished men. She likes a quick and witty homeless fellow, who waits at the subway exit and walks her to work every morning. He’s protective of her, but she just can’t get him to reform his lazy ways. Will she find love? We won’t know until the end of the series.

Quinn Perkins (African American – Track and Field)

Quinn Perkins works on Sharon’s team of investigators. She is a former Olympic athlete. She was brought to the MLB office from Minnesota where she was Director of Player Development. She uses her instincts, but also takes the lessons from literature and the humanities, to solve cases.

She is secretly dating the current batting champion who may, or may not, have murdered a topless dancer in Kansas City years previously. Quinn believes that he’s innocent, but is afraid to delve too deeply into it as asking questions might lead to a breakup. The player’s innocence or guilt, we will save for the last episode.

Angel Maddox (Anglo Ballerina)

Out of place in MLB, but she’s a favorite of the Commissioner. Young, only 22. Angel is sometimes naive, but she is the moral conscience of the team of detectives. Her boyfriend as the time was a local scout in the Baltimore/DC area. She was hired by the Commissioner after she (and her date) saved the Commissioner from being stabbed in the parking lot after an LA Dodger vs Houston Astros game. She’s tiny and soft and probably a bit out of place. She is the emotional support for the team and has taken on the task of chief morale booster. She also does logistical support, travel, and computers.

Fitz Goldwyn (The Commissioner of Baseball)

Fitzgerald “Fitz” Goldwyn III, is the Commissioner of Baseball. He controls Pope’s team like Charlie did on Charlie’s Angels. A Rhodes Scholar, Harvard law graduate, and decorated former US Air Force bomber pilot. Fitz was attached to a B-2 bomber squadron flying missions in tandem with US Navy special operations during the Gulf War in 1991. Before his military career, he was a college baseball player, which is how he met Sharon Pope, the only person whom he always unconditionally trusts.

The Commissioner is secretly in love with Sharon Pope and wants to divorce his wife to be with her, but honor and the good of baseball prevents it. Sharon Pope has been burned once by an office-place romance; she’s moved on and is adamant about keeping her professional reputation. Fitz respects that. Occasionally, the Commissioner pulls some strings and rescues Sharon Pope from the fires she’s started.

In an unhappy marriage, and faced with a huge task of preserving the reputation of baseball, Fitz has developed a slight drinking problem and has become more forceful and rash in his decisions, believing that he does not have anyone he can trust, except for Sharon Pope, whom he increasingly turns to more and more for advice and help to handle the very sensitive and problem-fraught issue of the league.

Mel Goldwyn (Anglo — Socialite)

Melody “Mel” Margaret Goldwyn, is an empowered woman graduate of Yale (undergrad) and Harvard Law, both top of her class; comes from a wealthy, patrician family with Southern roots. She is the wife of the Commissioner, and later will be a candidate for the U.S. Congress. She is a strong but cold and calculating woman, willing to do anything to stay the wife of the Commissioner, as she has political ambition.

Mel does love her husband; but she is a lawyer and hasn’t given up her career to support him. They sometimes clash, but regardless of how that ends, they are loyal to each other. Mel suspects that Fitz wants to have an affair with Sharon, but says nothing about it. However, she frequently blames Sharon for “botching” investigations. Sharon never does mess up investigations, but she does ruffle feathers. Mel and Fitz use each other.

Mel may or might not be having an affair with a political boss, a king-maker, in Manhattan. The man is mysterious but sends a car for her and they have business meetings at gourmet restaurants in Manhattan regularly. The show doesn’t expose what happens after the meals. It’s a mystery, saved for the final episode.

Armistead Lannan (Anglo homosexual)

Gay. An accounting and business aide to the Commissioner. He delivers the economics of each case to the Commissioner and establishes how many billions are at stake. He flirts with Christianity and leaving his homosexual lifestyle. By the end of the series, he may change his way of thinking.

Angus McCray (African-American)

Mr. Congeniality. Former player and current FBI agent. Sharon Pope uses him for background information and the occasional official government favor. Legal support.

Charles Putney (Small “Ichabod Crane” type Anglo)

An incredibly petty and small man. But he’s “a heavy” with a pen. Yellow-journalist with a national sports following. Constantly criticizing the league on page C-1 and after the MLB team’s report, the paper always carries the correction on page C-8. Or perhaps, he’s a television broadcaster. The bad news about baseball is aired at 7 pm. The cable channels airs the correction at 2 am.

Antonio Ricketts (pompous team owner)

Antonio Ricketts frequently clashes with the Commissioner.

The Criminal Heavies (guests)

The antagonists are always a combination of outsiders (confidence men, politicians, and mafia gamblers) with corrupt individuals (Benedict Arnolds) inside baseball who sell out the sport for money.