Leaked pages from the David Ross movie

Last night was former Cubs Catcher David Ross’s final night on network TV as part of Dancing With the Stars, but if you think that means he is going away... think again.

In addition to a new gig as an analyst for ESPN, you may have heard that the story of David Ross (uppercase) and the Chicago Cubs (lowercase) is being developed as a feature film project.

Now you may not be aware, but I’ve done a little screenwriting work myself, and in addition, I used to work as a script reader for several production companies. So I hit the phones, leaned on a few connections, and was able to get my hands on a few pages of the David Ross movie.

As often happens when a project is under wraps, I wasn’t able to get the entire screenplay. In fact, I could only get three pages, from three different parts of the script. But even so, I think they’ll give you a sense of what the Hollywood version of The David Ross Story is going to look like.

This first page seems like maybe it’s set in the present, perhaps as part of some kind of framing device?

Seems a little on-the-nose to me, but I hate to be too hard on what is probably a first draft.

The next page comes quite a ways later in the script, during Game Seven of the World Series. Parts of it seem at-odds with history, but I guess maybe they’re just taking that license that movies sometimes take.

The final page is the actual final page of the script. And look, I know Sports Movies tend to follow a certain formula, but this seems especially derivative to me. Be the judge yourself:

Anyway, that’s all I was able to get my hands on. Now I know for many of us, the natural reaction as Cardinals fans is to be real trolls about this. But I think the classy thing to do is to sit back, wish the project nothing but the best, and if a movie eventually gets made, give it the benefit of the doubt. That’s what I’m going to do.