Take Me Out to the Holosuite

This week's Baseball on TV episode is from the usually dark and intense science fiction series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But, for some reason this seventh season episode was bright and lighthearted.

I could go on for about fifty pages about this episode, holosuites, Vulcans, and a lot of other obscure notes about this and any episode. But, that would truly reveal my lack of both a personality and a life. Plus, there is so much to do today...Like clean my oven.

Avery Brooks, who played Hawk on Spenser: For Hire, is Captain Benjamin Sisko. Sisko is the man in charge of DS9 and by the seventh season of the show, the main characters on the show have become great friends and teammates.

Now, in the very first episode of DS9, Sisko was revealed to be a baseball fan. This is even though it was revealed in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Evolution that baseball is no longer played.

The plot of Take Me Out to the Holosuite is that a Vulcan, Captain Solok, a classmate of Sisko's at Starfleet Academy, arrives at the station to continue his goal of proving to Sisko that Vulcans are superior to humans. Well, I'm sure that there was another, more logical, reason for his visit to the station. But, this advances the plot of the episode.

Sisko discovers that the Vulcans on Captain Solok's crew have put a baseball team together. Sisko challenges them to a game.

The folks at DS9 are pretty good at fighting alien invasions from the Gamma Quadrant, dealing with transporter malfunctions, and handling Cardassian treachery, but baseball? Sisko and his son Jake are the only ones with any talent for or understanding of the game. But, they do come up with a cute name for their team, the Niners. Oh, please, make it stop.

Practice is a disaster, but the game goes on anyway.

The highlight of the game isn't any of the action, but this bit of infield chatter from the Niners:

Sisko: All right, Niners, let's hear some chatter.
Kasidy: Hey batter, batter, batter, batter, batter, batter!
Leeta: Hey batter, batter, batter, batter, batter, batter, batter!
Worf: Death to the Opposition!

Oh, that Worf!

Here's another sample of Worf at play. A Vulcan has missed home plate and Nog, the Niner catcher is at a loss for what to do. Chief O'Brien and Worf are helpful.

O'Brien: Nog, he didn't touch the base!
Nog: Wh-What do I do?!
Worf: Find him and kill him!!

Well, the Niners are being routed by the emotionless Vulcans. How emotionless? After each home run or grat play, the Vulcans just return to their bench with no cheering, clapping, or even a high five.

At the end of the game, the Niners get a meaningless run in the bottom of the ninth on a fluke hit by Rom, a Ferengi who was cut earlier in the episode. They celebrate as if they had just won Game Seven of the Federation Series. This confuses the Vulcans at the game and and the post-game blowout in the bar.

For the complete recap on this episode go to the TV.com page HERE. Don't go in too deep. You could get lost for days in there. Trust me.

Now, if you have stayed with this post to here, you deserve a little treat. A fan of the show has put together a music video of this episode to John Fogerty's Centerfield. Yep, you read that right. Just click on this little piece of YouTube magic to play it.