Baseball Legend & Hall of Fame Recipient Tommy Lasorda Partners With Independent Film Group to Produce Feature Film Based on Lasorda’s Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics

               DEBORAH AMELON RECRUITED TO PEN THE SCREENPLAY



    BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Aug. 18 /EMWNews/ -- Hall of Fame Baseball

recipient, TOMMY LASORDA, has partnered with INDEPENDENT FILM GROUP (IFG)

to produce his telling of the greatest period of his life -- "bringing home

the Olympic Gold Medal in Baseball to the USA".



    Lasorda's storied life, in his short 80 years, has crossed many

milestones, but none as important as bringing the Gold Medal back to the

USA, and whipping the Cubans in good ole American fashion. "Baseball is

America's game," according to Lasorda. "It doesn't belong to the Cubans,

Koreans or the Italians. I wanted this job real badly, because I wanted to

bring that Gold Medal back where it belongs, The USA!" Steven Jensen,

principal of IFG, and his associate, Justin Evans, were inspired by the

saga and knew the story had to be told. "Tommy is a legend, even to those

of us who aren't baseball nuts. He stands for everything American, and is a

true success story. After meeting Tommy, I knew from that moment that this

story had to be told, and to be told by Tommy. Some of today's best

professional baseball players can thank him for their tremendous success,

and for a Gold Medal to boot!" explains Jensen. Production is slated to

start July 2009, exactly nine years after team USA took home the Gold in

Sydney, Australia, with other locations such as Atlanta, GA and San Diego,

CA.



    IFG met with dozens of writers before deciding upon Deborah Amelon, who

can be called a true baseball fanatic. After several meetings and one final

meeting with Tommy, it was clear that Amelon had what it took to bring home

the best script. "It's a retelling of history, our history, with a legend

telling the story based on the facts. What more could a writer ask for,

except maybe getting to meet and interview baseball's greatest like BEN

SHEETS, PAT BORDERS, DOUG MIENTKIEWICZ, MIKE NEIL & ERNIE YOUNG to name a

few."



    The story goes like this ... 2000 is the first Olympiad in which

professionals and wooden bats are allowed into Olympic baseball

competition. Seven countries (USA among them) are sending baseball teams to

Sydney, Australia to dethrone the almighty and undefeated Cuban team. Team

USA cultivates their squad from a selection of minor leaguers, pros who

won't be called in September, recently retired major leaguers, and college

players, yielding one of the most peculiar teams ever, made up of Triple A

prospects, 30ish hangers-on, and unproven young pitchers.



    Lasorda and this ragtag collection of 28 players with widely ranging

ages arrive in Sydney with a mere three weeks to prepare to face Olympic

teams who have played together for years, the most forbidding being the

undefeated Cubans. The teammates have stars in their eyes about

representing their country, but are brought down to earth by taunts from

the Cuban players and fans, as well as anti-American attitudes of those who

remember the disgraceful behavior of the American hockey players at the '98

Winter Games. But most daunting of all are the jeers from the American

sports writers and fans who describe Team USA as "A Bunch of Nobodies" and

"The Not Ready for Prime Time Players". Many Americans are embarrassed by

the lack of celebrity talent on the team, actually wishing that the country

that invented baseball would send no team to the Olympics. But Tommy

Lasorda isn't putting up with that. He pulls his team together and

surprises them by announcing, "When these Olympics are over, I promise you

everybody will know your names." Then he shocks the rest of the world by

announcing, "I didn't come 6,000 miles to lose!"



    Tommy Lasorda has been called one of the most successful managers in

baseball history. In 20 years as a manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he

led his team to a total of eight division titles. Also on his watch, the

Dodgers went to the World Series four times, winning it twice (in 1981, and

again in 1988). He retired as Dodger manager in 1996, and became a Dodgers

vice president. In May, 2000, four years into his new job as a vice

president for the Dodgers and over 50 years with the organization, Lasorda

was called on to manage the U.S. Olympic baseball team at the Olympic games

in Sydney, Australia. "Being selected to manage the U. S. Olympic team is a

great privilege and honor; it's bigger than the World Series," he told USA

Today's Mike Dodd on the occasion. "It's bigger than the Dodgers, bigger

than Major League Baseball, because it's the United States of America. It's

your country." Lasorda led the team and the US it to its first-ever Olympic

gold medal at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney.



    Deborah Amelon



    Deborah Amelon is an Emmy and ACE award nominated writer with both

producing and directing credits. She has written numerous movies for

television, series, and theatrical features. Her credits include EXIT TO

EDEN, TRICKS, THE LAST SHOT, HUNGER POINT, NASH BRIDGES, PARENT TRAP II and

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL. EXIT TO EDEN is the adaptation of the ANNE RICE

novel of the same title. Ms. Amelon won the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle

Award for both writing and directing THE LAST SHOT. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE

SOUL is the series based on the best-selling books. She wrote and produced

122 of the stories. She won the Samuel Goldwyn Award for her screenplay of

TRICKS, a theatrical release starring Mimi Rogers. She won a prestigious

Writer's Guild Award for her screenplay, KATIE'S CHOICE. She has worked

with such Directors as Garry Marshall, Martha Coolidge and Penny Marshall,

and Producers such as Academy Award winner Wendy Finerman. She has written

the prestigious project about the Mercury 13, ROCKET WOMEN. Her film

adaptation of the Jillian Medoff novel, HUNGER POINT, presently airs on

Lifetime and stars Barbara Hershey. She wrote TARNISHED GOLD, the story of

Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian Pair Team awarded the second

Gold Medal in the Salt Lake Olympic judging scandal. On October 2, 2007,

her book DOROTHY HAMILL, A SKATING LIFE was published and made the NEW YORK

TIMES BESTSELLER LIST after only four days. She graduated Magna Cum Laude

with a degree in English Literature from UCLA and attended its Graduate

School of Film and Television. Before college she skated with Shipstad's

and Johnson's ICE FOLLIES, culminating a career as a competitive figure

skater. She is a Visiting Professor at UCLA, teaching screenwriting in the

Graduate School of Film and Television, and is a featured speaker at the

UCLA Conference Center at Lake Arrowhead.






     Contact:

     Independent Film Group, LLC

     Steven Jensen

     8444 Wilshire Blvd, 5th Floor

     Beverly Hills, CA  90211

     Tel 310-854-2300

     email [email protected]

     web http://www.indygroup.tv