As Hollywood, the greater Los Angeles area, and baseball fans celebrate the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first World Series title since 1988, Wonderfilm is in early stages of biopic of one of the stars of the 2020 Baseball Classic. It is not about a Dodger, but a Tampa Bay Ray. It is about the rise of the Rays slugging outfielder Randy Arozarena. Brad Gann, writer of sports movies Invincible and Black Irish is set to pen the script.
The 25-year old only made his major league debut with the Cardinals last season, but his latest postseason with the Rays may have been the greatest single hitting performance of all-time in a playoff run. On top of that, Arozarena, earlier in his life, defected from Cuba on a makeshift boat. Eventually landing in Mexico and then finally the United States, where he made history.
Arozarena batted .377, with 10 home runs, and an insane 1.273 OPS. That was good enough to beat Derek Jeter’s postseason rookie hits record, Barry Bonds’ postseason home run record, and Pablo Sandoval’s all-time hits in a postseason record, among others. Though the Rays eventually lost in 6 games to the Dodgers, Arozarena still had a run to remember.
The tale is a classic rags to riches story that is almost too good to be true.While the baseball player is only starting his career, his story is inspirational and has potential to be an incredible film. From a young man on a boat heading into the unknown to sliding in to score the winning run of Game 4 of the World Series. As Sorkin famously wrote in Moneyball, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”
The film has no set production or release date as of now.
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