"New York Yankee Brooks Crawford finds himself in the heart of Nicaragua at the tail end of the Contra-Sandinista conflict playing B-League baseball for the Managua Giants while securing Nicaragua’s first free and safe election in the face of American CIA backed operatives".
American Yankee Screenplay Available Upon Request
Genre: Geopolitical Love Story
American Yankee is the tale of disgraced New York right-handed reliever Brooks Palmer who travels to Central America to get his prized pitch back and in doing so secures Nicaragua’s first and free, democratic election.
“In my youth, I’d locate my fastball and change my speeds… now, I locate the Advil and reach for a warm towel. ”
Washed up personally and professionally, high-profile NY Yankee right-hander Brooks Crawford makes one last stand for credibility and legacy - to get back his prized 100 MPH fastball under the mentoring of Nicaraguan pitching great, Osniel Echevarria. As the country's first democratic election looms, so does the lingering, factional fighting between Sandinista forces and American backed Contra guerrillas. Upon arriving, Crawford meets ex-patriot American Faith St. Thomas who works tirelessly with NGO, Witness For Peace (WFP) in aiding the fragile country toward its first safe, secure and fair democratic election between the entrenched, warring opposition parties.
“Look, I just came down here to get my pitch back, I’m no “Che Guevara!”
As a budding relationship grows between Brooks and Faith, Crawford's growing sports notoriety provides a shining light onto the violent and pernicious forces who’d like to see nothing more than a corrupted electoral outcome. Crawford's presence and close proximity to Faith’s NGO and her political work wield unanticipated consequences – a heroic popularity in spite-of-himself. Crawford's pitch begins to return while the political atmosphere intensifies. Outside pressures are brought to bear on the national election. Much of it targeted toward the efforts of Faith, her organization, Crawford and that of his new teammates. Faith’s headquarters is burned down, fellow ballplayers and friends are besieged, arrests are then made - the campaign to demoralize election officials gets fully underway.
Nicaragua teeters on the precipice of yet another all-out civil war. Crawford finds himself thinking little of his prized pitch and more toward the safety of Faith, his targeted coaches and teammates. Crawford is leveraged to leave the country but is confronted by Faith not to do so. As the city of Managua is overtaken by CIA backed, enemy shock troops, Brooks Crawford is pushed to his limits. Now with a political action plan of his own, Crawford summons a squad of eleven retired Major League American ballplayers, confronts forces who would intimidate those at the voting precincts, and leads his American make-shift squad to protect the polling places by barnstorming the countryside with his own brand of political activism - American Baseball.
“A man with a ball, his last walk to the mound, a life that was over, now one that is found”.