Richard Prigatano dug in at the plate and stared down pitcher Beck Wheeler as a 24-foot boom camera hovered directly over his head and a film crew scurried around the on-deck circle.

“We’re rolling!” director Patrick Weiland shouted from behind a shaded monitor. “And, action!”

Wheeler rocked into his motion and unleashed a 70-mph meatball that Prigatano crushed on cue into a high, arcing home run which cleared the 405-foot sign in center field and rattled around the concourse at CHS Field.

“We got it!” Weiland yelled.

“You can’t write that any better,” marveled first baseman Dan Johnson.

Hollywood invaded St. Paul this week, pitching to make the Saints darlings of a documentary series chronicling minor-league baseball’s dream chasers and vagabonds for a binge-watching audience.

“Bush League” is the working title of the pilot aimed at capturing the triumphs and pratfalls, sacrifices and camaraderie that keeps these players coming back for more despite the miniscule pay and obscurity of independent league ball.

Think of it as “Hard Knocks” for the hardball crowd, borrowing slightly from the popular HBO summer series that follows, with R-rated flair, the roster maneuvers and outsized personalities of an NFL team during training camp.

The baseball version would focus less on cuts and “turn-in-your-playbook” drama. But it will keep the profanity and peel back the curtain on clubhouse hijinks, marathon bus rides and profile veterans who have grinded through affiliated ball or made it to the major leagues only to have their ascendant careers snuffed.

A camera crew is following Tom Wilhelmsen, Prigatano, Wheeler and Johnson — the former Blaine High School standout — around town. They will mic up the players and shoot in the clubhouse, dugout and bullpen during the Saints’ May 21-23 homestand against the Chicago Dogs.

How the project came to fruition is an intriguing tale.

Paperclip Limited is developing the series. The Los Angeles-based company is co-owned by Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson of “The Simpsons.” Paperclip Limited will shop the 10-minute “sizzle reel” produced in St. Paul to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon to finance a full series.

If picked up, a film crew would embed with the Saints for the entire 2019 season.

“I really wanted to shine a light on the sacrifice these guys make and how hard it is, doing it for the love of the game and a shot to make the big leagues,” said creator Dan Grice.

He would know.

Grice played six years in the minors, progressing to double-A in the Cubs organization. He won the 2002 Northern League championship with the New Jersey Jackals, then-managed by George Tsamis, who moved on to the Saints the following year.

Grice retired from baseball at age 26 and become a police officer, K-9 handler and homicide detective in Springfield, Ore. One day in 2014, Smith visited to unveil a mural during a publicity tour for her long-running animated series.

“Every Springfield in the country wants to claim they’re the Springfield of ‘The Simpsons,’ ” Grice quipped.

The detective was assigned protective duty for Smith. They struck up a friendship and eventually became a couple.

Grice pitched Ben Cornwell, Smith’s partner at Paperclip Limited, a minor-league baseball docu-series.

“To hear Dan’s story about the good times, bad times, fun times and drama of constantly being moved around, the uncertainty and willingness to grind and grind and grind to get that shot — it is fascinating,” said Cornwell.

Grice’s passion project took two years to get off the ground. He has the backing of Twin Cities celebrity chef and Travel Channel star Andrew Zimmern. Intuitive Content, Zimmern’s Minneapolis-based production company, is filming this demo, which will be edited and packaged for screening by mid-June.

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In 1996, the fledgling Saints opened their doors for “Baseball, Minnesota,” an FX cable documentary that mostly followed former big-league superstars Jack Morris and Darryl Strawberry on their comeback trails. “Bush League” has broader appeal for the mature franchise, according to Saints vice president Sean Aronson.

“The Saints story has been told from many different angles in our first 25 years,” he said. “We’ve never hid who we are as an organization, but if this project comes to fruition, it will bring fans closer to our organization than they’ve ever been.”

Wednesday’s three-hour shoot took place under a cloudless sky, with the din of U.S. 52 and Holman Field air traffic piercing the background.

The $60,000 boom camera swung low off the plate and precariously close to the right-handed hitting Prigatano for super-slow motion shots that captured six feet of baseball movement per one second. Wheeler showed off his knuckleball. Position players slid into bases. Most of the digital content will be used for introductory and transition scenes.

Profiles will focus on: Johnson, who has played 17 years of pro ball, including a decade in the majors; Wilhelmsen, who took a five-year hiatus to bartend and backpack through Europe before coming back to become closer for the Seattle Mariners; and Prigatano, a former Baseball America top prospect who played single-A for the Rockies and two years for the independent Wichita Wingnuts.

And Wheeler, who was severely injured by a boat propeller in high school before resurrecting his career and progressing to Triple-A in the Mets organization. His seven-year contract with New York expired last year, and he failed to land a deal as a free agent.

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“It’s an awesome experience,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun to see the whole process and have the guys in the clubhouse every day and in the field and in the bullpen with us.

“I’ve watched ‘Hard Knocks’ and ‘Last Chance U,’ so it’s cool to have a something that can show the fans what a full season of professional baseball is like.”