Variety reports on a rather intriguing fact-based baseball project that’s now underway at Warners. "Stolen Season" will tell the story of how a young Rick Dempsey (long before he played for the Baltimore Orioles) unknowingly befriended a bank-robbing little league coach…
The story "borrows a page from the real-life childhood of former Baltimore Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey, who fell under the spell of charismatic coach John Jennings when he was 13 and playing on a Southern California Pony League baseball team in 1963. By the time the summer was over, Jennings had robbed a string of 20 banks up and down the California coast, using the team’s travel as cover."
Producers Evan Astrowsky ("Cabin Fever") and Jon Shestack ("Disturbing Behavior") acquired the rights to Dempsey’s story, WB bought the concept, and promptly hired John Raffo ("Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story") to shape the tale into screenplay form. Former high-school baseballer Johnny Knoxville ("The Dukes of Hazzard") is apparently more than a little interested in playing the devious coach / bank-robber.
