"We Gotta Look for a Southpaw"

"The Adventure of the Mouse's Blood: An Original Radio Detective Drama."
By Ellery Queen (1905-71; 1905-82).
First appearance on radio: The Adventures of Ellery Queen, May 26, 1940 on CBS; rebroadcast August 5, 1943 on NBC.
First appearance in print: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1942.

Radio play (15 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

The Characters

Ellery Queen . . . the detective

Nikki Porter . . . his secretary

Inspector Queen . . . his father

Sergeant Velie . . . of Inspector Queen's staff

Sam Buckley . . . a sports commentator

Johnnie Kilgore . . . heavyweight contender

Louie . . . his manager

Memphis Slats Mayo . . . baseball pitcher

Peewee Robbin . . . famous jockey

Dotty Dale . . . famous woman-swimmer

and Fight Fans — Baseball Crowd — Racing Fans — Detectives, etc.

                                               Scene

The Garden — The Stadium — The Park — and A Private House in Flatbush

     "I wish somebody'd leave prints some time . . ."

A two-bit crook (he "sees all, hears all, says nuttin'—fer a price!") has the goods on a number of sports figures and is running a lucrative blackmailing operation—until, no surprise here, somebody decides to cancel all of his future appointments with a very sharp letter-opener ...

Comment: Trained radio actors might be able to handle dialect dialogue effectively on the air but it tends to fall flat on the printed page.

Resources:
- Nikki refers to Ellery as "the original Argus"; see Wikipedia (HERE) for the original original Argus.
- Other references in Wikipedia to actual sports figures mentioned in the play: Helen Wills (HERE); Sonja Henie (HERE), who made it big in the movies; and Jack Dempsey (HERE).
- Another Ellery Queen play involving the fight game, this one written for TV, is "The Adventure of the Sunday Punch" from the 1975-76 series (HERE; IMDb), with the video 
(HERE)—for the moment, anyway; as for a no-hitter in baseball, see Wikipedia (HERE), especially the part about "Superstitions."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~