Pitch It Again, Sam

This week's Baseball on TV episode is from season nine of Cheers.

The backstory on Sam Malone is that he was a good pitcher for the Red Sox, but his career was derailed by a drinking problem. There were many allusions to his career, but rarely was there actual baseball played on the show. The confinement of the show mainly to the bar lent itself to this. However, in the episode Pitch It Again, Sam there was baseball, not on camera, but baseball.



Dutch Kincaid owned Sam Malone when they were both in the major leagues. Owned? Pretty much everytime Dutch faced Sam, a home run was the result. On top of it, Dutch had an annoying celebration that he did as he rounded the bases after a home run.

Kincaid has a tribute coming up for the Yankees and what better tribute than to have Sam lay one in there for Dutch to crack out of the stadium?

At first, Sam doesn't want to do it. But, then he builds himself up and convinces himself that this time....oh, yes...THIS time things would be different.

But, things aren't different. They never are different. The same thing that happened before, happens again. Dutch celebrates. Sam feels like crap.

The episode ends with Dutch coming into the bar to gloat and he goads Sam into heading outside to pitch a few more to him. Then, off-screen, there are many huge cracks of the bat after each pitch and the annoying celebration of Dutch is heard.

The lead character loses again.

Tell me again yhy was this show popular? Kidding. Kidding.