What little free time I’ve had since this past Monday has been occupied by just one thing: Baseball.
It’s one of the only forms of entertainment I enjoy more than comics, SF and other geeky stuff, and provides me with a much welcome escape… from the world of capes and spaceships and Mandalorians.
Now the new baseball season’s just three days old and as I set my fantasy rosters and pore over stats and root for The Mets and marvel at Joe Mauer’s astounding ability, I find geekdom encroaching at every turn. How’s that?
I can’t get the frigging Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” out of my head! For three days now!
If you’ve not seen it I’ll briefly recap- Captain Sisko challenges an old academy classmate and rival, the Vulcan Solok, and his crew to a baseball game in the holosuites of Quark’s… Ah, just watch the clip for a brief recap.
The Vulcans for the most part play small ball, with an emphasis on pitching, defense, and advancing the runner. Cold, efficient, and precise. It’s a very Japanese style of play. They destroy the “Niners” but Sisko and company are the real “winners” because they enjoyed themselves as a team. Awww.
Yes, the episode’s a tad canned and corny (CAN OF CORN!) and revives a number of cliches the Bad New Bears perfected twenty-two years earlier and every lovable-losers baseball film has banked on since. But The Bad News Bears didn’t have a Klingon (Worf) playing first base, who in a round of on-field taunting, barks “Death to the opposition!”
Next Week’s Psychosis: Talkin’ Softball!
