Cast and director of the PITCH

JOHN HAAG* (Roger Pennell, a retired sportswriter from the New Haven Record) has extensive acting experience in New York, regional theater and touring companies. His roles have included Robert in Proof, Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind, Andrew Wyke in Sleuth, the emperor in The Emperor’s Nightingale, King Henry II in Lion in Winter and Macbeth in Macbeth. He has also narrated more than 200 audiobooks. John holds an MFA from Brooklyn College.

CLIFF MILLER* (Young Roger Pennell) is an actor and musician who works in film and theater but also does voice acting. He has recorded more than 30 audiobooks. His stage work includes Hamlet for Hartford Stage; Death of a Salesman, Henry IV and The Tempest at the Dallas Theater Center; Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2 with the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey; and House and Garden, A Texas Romance at the Austin Playhouse. His New York City credits include Injunction Granted at the Metropolitan Playhouse. A native and current resident of Austin, Tex, he holds an MFA in Acting from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.

AMANDA BOWMAN (Carla, a sports intern at the Record) is a New England-based actress who works in film and theater. She is a founding member of the Human Agenda Theater. She is also a sound recordist and boom operator. Amanda graduated with a BFA in Contemporary Theater from Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

FLOYD PATTERSON II (Steve, the Record's sports editor) is an actor and musician. He starred as Paul Robeson on stage at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Mass., (where The Pitch debuted in 2020) as well as at other theaters in the Northeast. He has also played Tom in To Kill a Mockingbird, Brian in The Shadow Box and Lucien in The Boys Next Door. For nearly thirty years, he has also been a singer and bass player for one of the most popular – and busiest – bands in Western Massachusetts that currently performs under the name Hipptown..

LINDA TARDIF (Sandy, Mike Resnick's wife) has acted in New York City and Western Massachusetts, including roles in Marcellus Shale at La Mama in the East Village; AliceGraceAnon with New Georges in Brooklyn; The Life and Death of Queen Margaret with Real Live Theater in Northampton, Mass; and Stupid F*cking Bird with the Silverthorne Theater Co. in Greenfield, Mass. She is currently managing director of the Shea Theater in Turners Falls, Mass. She has a degree in theater from University of Massachusetts.

CLAUDIO OREFICE (Eddie Romano, a former ballplayer) is an award winning actor, writer and producer. He has been in several feature films including VAULT, Know Nothins, Johnny and Clyde, Damon’s Revenge, Agent Toby Barks and more. He also ran two Boston Marathons and has degrees in chemistry and biology.

SHAWN GUNDERSEN (Yankee press liaison) is a musician and actor from Northampton, Mass., who studied Film and Communication at University of Massachusetts. He worked as a production assistant and an uncredited extra in the independent film The Junior Avengers, and in 2013, he played an office manager in the film Polypore. As a musician, he has sung, played guitar – acoustic and bass – with numerous bands in Western Massachusetts, including yeP! He is also the founder and president of Norseman Audio-Video Systems.

KEELAN HIGGINS (Pauline, Roger's former wife) has acted on stage and in film, but she is primarily a writer. With degrees from Roger Williams University and Boston University, she is director of communications for Dotdash Meredith, the nation’s largest digital and print publisher. She is from Southwick, Mass.

JULIAN FINDLAY* (Mike Resnick, a young sportswriter at the Record) trained and performed over six seasons at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass. He has performed in more than forty plays for Commonwealth Shakespeare, the Silverthorne Theater and the Majestic Theater, among others. A graduate of Harvard, he is the founder and artistic director of Shakespeare Stage and was the theater director of Stoneleigh-Burnham, an all-girls prep school in Western Massachusetts. Julian is also a hiphop artist whose work can be found on all streaming platforms.

REYNOLDS WHALEN (Vernon Peters, a former New York Yankee pitcher) is a two-time Rhodes Scholarship finalist who holds a degree in theater and African American Studies from Washington University. He is the founder and executive director of Performing Arts Abroad, an agency that matches students to foreign study programs in the arts. A documentary filmmaker, he has worked extensively in Africa, writing, directing and editing documentaries in Kenya and elsewhere on the continent. And with a Masters Degree in Education from Hunter College, he served for two years in Teach for America in the South Bronx. Also, he pitches for a men's adult baseball league in Western Massachusetts.

STAN FREEMAN (writer-director) spent nearly three decades as a newspaper reporter before turning to filmmaking. His articles appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Chronicle and St. Louis Post-Dispatch as well as in more than 30 others. For most of his career, he was the science writer for the Springfield, (Mass.) newspapers. His book, "The God Question and the Galapagos Colony," a collection of two science fiction novellas, was named one of the "best books of 2021" by Kirkus Reviews.

DENNIS LEE (voice of the baseball announcer) was a longtime radio personality in Western Massachusetts. He began his career doing play-by-play for semi-pro ice hockey in New Hampshire. He was a lifelong Yankee fan until the team fired famed TV announcer Mel Allen. The next day, he switched his allegiance to the Red Sox.

* A member of the Screen Actors Guild

Roger Pennell ..... JOHN HAAG

Mike Resnick ...... JULIAN FINDLAY

Vernon Peters ...... REYNOLDS WHALEN

Young Roger ...... CLIFF MILLER

Carla ...... AMANDA BOWMAN

Steve ...... FLOYD PATTERSON II

Sandy ...... LINDA TARDIF

Eddie Romano ...... CLAUDIO OREFICE

Baseball play-by-play announcer ...... DENNIS LEE

Pauline ...... KEELAN HIGGINS

Older Pauline ...... CATHERINE STEWART

Older Vernon ...... PAUL NEILSON

Yankee press liaison ...... SHAWN GUNDERSEN

Batting cage hitter ...... DAN BURNETT

Record publisher ...... STEVE SMITH

Press box reporters ...... LUNDY BANCROFT, ROBERT ENG

Newspaper city room reporters ...... JEANETTE DEFORGE, JIM KINNEY

Pool players ...... BARRY GRIMES, MIKE MCDONNELL, JEREMY BRIDA

Voice of Bernice ...... JULIE ROSTEN

Poker players ...... JO-AN COURTEMANCHE, JOHN SULLIVAN, RUSS NOWAK, DENNIS LEE, JOHN DARROW, BRIAN CASE

Funeral crowd ...... LINDA LANGLAIS, ERIC STAHLBERG, JO-AN COURTEMANCHE, DARA JOHNSON

Bartender at Packard’s ...... TYLER MARTIN

Man at bar in Packard’s ...... JOHN KUZMESKI

Baseball players ...... LUKE RHEAULT, CLINTON WELLS, JUAN VERA, BRENDAN ODELL, JOEL FERNANDEZ, BRANDON FOX, JORDAN BRANSON, BRIAN PEARLMAN, JOHN HERRON, GLENN SULLIVAN

Baseball umpire ...... PAT JOHNSON

WRITTEN, DIRECTED, EDITED AND PRODUCED BY

STAN FREEMAN

ADDITIONAL SOUND EDITING BY

PETER ACKER

RIKK DEGRES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This film was shot entirely within the

Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts.

Making it would not have been possible without

the cooperation of the following people, businesses,

institutions and municipalities in the Valley.

George Arwady and Larry Parnass of

the Springfield Republican newspaper

Bob McGovern of Packard’s

in Northampton

Ari Berezin of the Brushworks

Arts and Industry Building in Florence

Mike Wanczyk of Wanczyk’s

Evergreen Nursery in Hadley

Georgianna Brunton of the

Miss Florence Diner in Florence

Lynn Abi Assaf, Rich Holrock and Kyle Uchneat

of the Western Massachusetts

Family Golf Center in Hadley

Bill Arnold of 30 North Maple Street in Florence

Chris Thompson of the Westfield Starfires

Ron Totten and the Pioneer

Valley Baseball League

The University of Massachusetts in Amherst

Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield

The City of Northampton

Forbes Library in Northampton

Florence Congregational Church

Florence Pizza and Family Restaurant

Holly Angelo and Dave Bergengren in Florence

Julia and Reynolds Whalen in Greenfield

Linda Tardif and Sam Perry in Turners Falls

Stephanie Barry and Dave Canton in Springfield

Lucas Fappiano, Shannon Collins and Lucas May in Northampton

“The Pitch” began as a successful stage play written by Stan Freeman and starring John Haag and Julian Findlay. Special thanks to Danny Eaton, the producing director of the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Mass., for giving “The Pitch” its debut, five-week run in 2020 and 2021.

Also, a special acknowledgment to stage and film producer Norman Twain who first encouraged Freeman to write “The Pitch” as a play. Unfortunately, Twain died in 2016 before ever seeing a production.

A production of Mill River Films

Cast and director of the PITCH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CREDITS