THE GREEK MUST GO - A SCREENPLAY

[Chuck V]

THE GREEK MUST GO
1. FADE IN: A wide shot of Austin’s Austin Baseball Field from above. The shot circles around showing the diamond and the light towers and the Cookie Monster, the thirty-foot-tall wall in right field.
2. Cut to the hallways of the Austin Shredders front office. People move from office to office. Multiple cuts showing different parts of the stadium. Vendors cooking hot dogs, beer kegs being loaded, groundskeepers dragging the infield. Finally cut to a functionally furnaced front office. The female admin, an older woman named SALLY is at her desk and touches a beeping cube. SALLY
Yes Mr. Valenches?
VOICE ON THE OTHER END OF THE CUBE
Sally, find me Derek Morgan and tell him I want to see him right away.
SALLY
Yes, Mr. Valenches. I will find him right away. 3. Close up of cube and a hand reaching out to touch it, a red light signals that the call has been disconnected. A shot of SALLY exiting her desk and leaving the office.
4. Cut to the inside of the General Managers office. A man who looks to be in his late 50’s sits at a desk reviewing a floating screen that he scrolls through with his finger. This is CHUCK, the General Manager of the Austin Shredders. He wears a golf shirt with the Shredders logo and a pair of ancient, out of place reading glasses. He appears exhausted, rubbing his short beard with his hand and sweeping his hand back over his short gray hair. His office door opens and in walks DEREK, the Assistant GM. He is a 40ish black man, still in excellent shape. CHUCK
Shut the door
DEREK
[shuts door]
What’s up? You wanted to see me?
CHUCK
Have you looked at Socrates contract like I asked you to?
DEREK
Yeah, and like I told you the last time you asked me to look at it, No. There is no way to void it.
CHUCK
Then what the hell do I pay you for? That fucking has been is making eight million this year to trip on his own dick and bat .162 and next year, when he is a year older, slower and fucking less talented he will be making 12.5 million? Between him and that fucktard Glenn Fox our cap space is getting killed!
DEREK
You pay me to write contracts that the players can’t get out of. Agents, like Benny Soras, are paid by the players to write contracts that WE can’t get out of. It’s called being a good attorney. My other job is to advise you on player moves and give my opinion, which you apparently don’t listen to, because you signed Socrates Kazantziakis for five years 48 million dollars, despite my warning that he was 34 years old at the time and on the downside of his career.
CHUCK
[waves dismissively]
I also pay you to shut your pie hole when I’m angry and let the bus I throw you under roll over you without a peep, but more on that later. My question to you is, what can we do?
DEREK
There is not much you can do. He has a player option this year and if he exercises it, and he would be a complete moron if he did not, will make 12.5 million next year and the year after that. They don’t call him the Professor for nothing. Unless he dies or does not exercise that option o you find some GM out there that has a career death wish and trades for him, you are stuck with him.
CHUCK
[Stares up at the ceiling]
Not a lot of great options. Option number one is a no-go, but let’s keep it on the back burner. I do not know how we can convince this guy to not exercise his option, nobody is going to pay him that money for his performance, I don’t care how good of a SS he was. Do you think we could trade him?
DEREK
Probably not, I could make some calls, but we’d probably have to eat some of the contract.
CHUCK
Just check around. Put out some feelers. We will do what it takes. I just know, The Greek has to go. FADE OUT

[Jwalk100]

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[aaronweiner]

images.jpeg

Kismet.

[Trebro]

Oh, Socrates. One of those players I often coveted but never acquired. Probably for the best, though what I have chosen instead ain't exactly great.

[Chuck V]

Oh, Socrates. One of those players I often coveted but never acquired. Probably for the best, though what I have chosen instead ain't exactly great.

He played quite well the first year I had him, but fell off last year and now is just kind of fading fast., Though, to be fair, my entire offense has a great deal suckitude. Dead last in most offensive categories. Bad moves by me have stymied our offense for a couple more years.