FADE IN:

Scruffy, handsome young man with bloodshot eyes grins slyly. Cocky. Like he owns the world. And, hell, he just might.

RADIO ANNOUNCER V.O. (Southern, folksy): … Once in a generation talent…

A flashbulb POPS, blinding us.

Title: ‘OCTOBER 1947’

He leans back in a chair, on an interview of some sort. Drunk, he wears a baseball uniform, ‘PONTIACS’ scrawled on the front. Famous athlete? Perhaps. This is EDDIE KLEP (26).

INTERVIEWER O.S.: … Klep. That one ‘p’ or two? Got it both ways here.

Eddie scoffs at the perceived slight.

EDDIE: Just call me Lefty. Ya know, like Gomez or Grove.

INTERVIEWER O.S.: Quite a record you got, Lefty.

EDDIE: 21 and 4, couldn’t touch me.

INTERVIEWER O.S.: Drunkenness. Disorderly conduct. Adultery.

Strange thing to say in an interview, especially in 1947. But Eddie smiles it away, oozing his natural charm.

EDDIE: Two and oh for the Bucks. Can’t pin that one on me- wasn’t my fault, bases were loaded.

INTERVIEWER O.S.: Seem a lil’ loaded yesterday.

Eddie leaps up in his chair. And we see he’s not being interviewed- he’s in a city jail, being processed.

EDDIE: Hey, got a bottle stashed in here? Don’t worry, I won’t say nothin.’

INT. JAIL, ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA — AFTERNOON

‘The interviewer,’ a burly, mustached cop, SERGEANT KRAVITZ (32), thumbs through Eddie’s file. On his tidy desk, a tiny American flag and a crackly radio airing the World Series.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: This time it’s what… ‘burglary’ and ‘receiving stolen goods.’

EDDIE: Goods? C’mon! It was just beer.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: 42 dollars and 50 cents worth.

EDDIE: What can I say, I was thirsty.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Think this is a joke? Huh? Fellas overseas, fightin’ and dyin,’ you in and outta here like a hotel?

EDDIE: Whaddya want, they said I was 4F. Uh, funny and frank and…

Loses his train of thought as he hears the radio broadcast.

RADIO ANNOUNCER V.O.: … Just 21, the young southpaw has a honey of a future ahead of him…

Eddie stares at the radio, dejected. Like his dog just died.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Everything the same? Same address?

EDDIE (distracted): Yeah.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Still married?

EDDIE: Huh?

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: There a Mrs. Klep? And we’re gonna go with one ‘p,’ keep it simple.

EDDIE: Whadda she gotta do with it? She don’t gotta know nothin’!

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Think she’ll find out soon enough.

EDDIE: Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Prob’ly be all over the papers.

Slumps in his chair, sighing.

EDDIE: … Could ya turn that off?

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: It’s the World Series.

EDDIE: Got rights, ya know.

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: What, don’t like baseball?

Eddie sneers. Another slight. He’s a volcano about to erupt.

ANNOUNCER V.O.: … Glares down at the batter as if he insulted his own mother…

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Figured you did, that getup on.

Eddie springs up in the seat, his face flushed with rage.

EDDIE: You don’t know who am I, do ya?

SERGEANT KRAVITZ: Am I supposed to?

EDDIE: (big) Yeah.

HOLD on his fiery eyes, a look we’ll get to know. On the radio, raucous CHEERS from the crowd as the pitcher strikes out the batter. Over this, chants of ‘ED-DEE!’ ‘ED-DEE!’

Title: ‘ONE YEAR EARLIER’