“The He crowd want a show that’ll have a man-and-boy pull. There it is. _Bush League Larry_. A baseball script with two principal characters. Larry Logan, coming off a farm to pitch for a team in an alfalfa county league and old Ike Totten, who lives alone and has one interest in life—baseball. The He crowd may go on the air early in September with a three-a-week. Capitalize right at the start on the growing interest of a coming World Series. In the script we have Larry catch the eye of a scout and be signed for a spring try-out. We’ll run Larry and Ike through the winter on a string of adventure. Larry loses a finger in a hunting accident. Will he be able to pitch with three fingers? There’s your suspense. The script opens with Larry’s arrival at the alfalfa town. I’ll be Ike.” A man came in with some advertising lay-outs and talked to Tony. Joe had a chance to scan the script: Sound—Train Coming on to Mike and Stopping at Station Conductor (above escaping steam): Ticeville. Here’s where you get off, young fellow. All a-a-aboard. Sound—Train Panting Leaves Station. Fades Ike: Looking for somebody, stranger? Larry: I’m looking for Bud Wilson. Ike: If you’re a salesman trying to sell Bud some baseball goods, you’re wasting your time. Bud’s Ticeville team ain’t been going so good. When a team in these parts don’t win, folks stay away. Larry: I’m to meet Bud Wilson at the ball park. Is it far? Ike (eagerly): You a ball player? Larry: I hope so. Ike (in rising excitement): A pitcher? Tell me quick. You got a fast ball? Larry: Back home they call it the ‘There it ain’t’ ball. Ike: Son, if you’ve got a smoke ball and you don’t need a surveying party to show you where the plate is— The man with the advertising lay-outs left. “All right, Joe.” Tony Vaux chuckled jovially. “Let’s you and me play some baseball.” He mumbled Ike Totten’s opening lines, feeding them merely as careless cues. Joe picked up the part. Wylie, hearing him read the first time, had ripped his first sentence apart with a fiery tongue. Tony, offering no criticism, kept mumbling dialogue. The audition went on to the script’s end, one person doing no more than making sounds, the other trying to breathe character and atmosphere and feeling into words. “You almost make me feel you’re a green rookie,” Tony chuckled. “But not a scared rookie. Get the point, Joe? You’ve never been off the farm. You’re a big, husky, corn-fed kid; you’re scared and you’re homesick. You’re not going to let anybody see you’re scared. You play tough. Not too tough. Some of the scare peeping through the toughness. Let’s try it that way.” They went through the script again. “Better, Joe. You pick up fast. Now, a little more uncertainty in the toughness. Remember your first audition? FKIP, wasn’t it? I’ll lay a bet you were a lost pup. Well, Joe, this time it’s baseball, not radio. Once more.”