As a result, “Bottom of the 9th” doesn’t make things easy for any of its sympathetic characters. To give him credit, though, Bruzio, like De Felitta, knows better than to ever push things too far or strain credibility. Here and elsewhere, Robert Bruzio’s script is littered with clichés and contrivances.

His low regard for the disgraced veteran is elevated only slightly when he, and Harris, see that, despite his long absence from the baseball diamond, Sonny can still swing for the fences. The job offer isn’t merely a favor: Harris needs Sonny’s expertise to sharpen the focus and discipline the slugging of Manny (Xavier Scott Evans), a hot-prospect hitter who thinks there’s nothing any old-timer - and especially an ex-con old-timer - can teach him. Things don’t start to look up for Sonny until he’s hired as an assistant by a former coach, Harris (Michael Rispoli, star of “Two Bedroom House”), who’s now in charge of the State Island Empires, a fictional Yankees farm team. Guilt-racked and humbled, Sonny finds it difficult to disagree.

And even though he might want to reunite with Angela (Vergara), a sweetheart he told to move on and forget him after his manslaughter conviction, he’s pointedly warned by Billy (Yancey Arias), a cop who just happens to be her cousin, that she doesn’t need to have her heart broken again by a loser. His parole officer (Denis O’Hare) is a cynical scold who expects the worst of him. The family of the man he killed rejects his pleas for forgiveness with ferocious hostility. After spending 18 years in Sing Sing, he returns to his old Bronx neighborhood and receives a reception several degrees less than warm. Manganiello plays Sonny Stano, a once-promising baseball player who was on his way to a major league career with the New York Yankees when he accidentally killed someone in a street fight.

Bottom of the 9th imdb