Troy O’Leary readies reality baseball show

Can I first find out if John Wakefield is alive yet or not…before this nonsense?!

Thank you (Disgruntled in Ramblewood, N.J.)

O’Leary began thinking about a concept for a baseball TV reality series. Month by month, it started to get more creative and involved. He added associates in Alexandra Athanasopoulos and Mike Pearson. He got ex-players and friends like Reggie Jefferson, Mike Stanley, Darren Lewis, John Valentin, Jeff Cirillo, and Rafael Naboa to commit to roles. He received guidance from Reds manager Dusty Baker and from former agent and current special adviser to the White Sox Dennis Gilbert.

Now O’Leary, 39, is ready to become the Simon Cowell of baseball on a show called “Play Big or Go Home.”

...The concept starts with baseball players preferably aged 18-22 sending O’Leary videos of them in action. O’Leary will evaluate them and select 15 players from the East, Midwest, and West regions. When he’s whittled them down, that’s when the judging and voting begins.

According to Athanasopoulos, an IT professional for Wells Fargo in Chandler, Ariz., the show will incorporate a human element, with stories of the players’ lives and backgrounds - even “love stories.” O’Leary and a panel of judges, likely made up of ex-players, will determine whether they continue or pack up and go home. O’Leary’s goal is “to find the five-tool player and to get them an invite to a major league spring training camp.”