Sisko convenes his senior staff to the ward room and announces that Solok's crew of Vulcans has challenged the station crew to a game of baseball. The crew enthusiastically agree, but none of them except the Siskos have ever played baseball before. They have two weeks to transform from a ragtag bunch of Starfleet officers into a baseball team. Calling themselves the Niners, the team consists of Sisko, Jake, Kira, O'Brien, Worf, Bashir, Ezri, and Nog. Leeta and Rom volunteer soon after and even manage to goad Quark into giving it a try. Sisko recruits Odo to be the umpire, trusting on his impeccable sense of fairness.
The first practice goes so badly that several players wind up in the infirmary, but they make progress little by little. Rom, however, remains as hopeless as ever. After several days, Sisko runs out of patience and kicks him off the team. The other players are dismayed and can't understand why Sisko is taking this game so seriously. Kasidy, also a baseball enthusiast, joins the team after returning from a freighter run and becomes determined to find out why Sisko is so on edge.
It all started at a bar during Sisko's Academy days, when Solok's insistence on Vulcan superiority over "emotionally handicapped" humans got under Sisko's skin. With the kind of judgment that comes with a night of drinking, Sisko challenged him to a wrestling match to settle the matter and wound up in the infirmary, humiliated. Unfortunately, the rivalry didn't end there. Ever since then, Solok has continued to publish studies on human inferiority and include his wrestling victory as evidence. This latest effort, using Sisko's own game against him, is too personal to tolerate. At his insistence, Kasidy swears to keep the story a secret...and in short order, she tells the rest of the team. They all agree that Solok is a Jerkass who deserves to be taken down a peg.
Game day arrives, and both teams convene in a holographic field. Things don't start out so well for the Niners. By the fifth inning they haven't scored once, with only Jake's pitching keeping the Vulcans from reaching double digits. Things look up when Kira gets on base, and their slugger Worf goes to bat. On a full count, Worf unexpectedly strikes out, prompting him and Sisko to furiously dispute Odo's call. Sisko jabs a finger into Odo's chest and gets himself ejected for violating the rules.
O'Brien takes over while Sisko goes to stew in the bleachers a few rows down from Rom, who has been loyally cheering the Niners on all by himself this whole time. As the game continues, the Niners seem to relax and just start enjoying themselves. After a good play, Rom comments that the game looks like fun. Sisko makes a snap decision and sneaks over to the dugout to order O'Brien to let Rom back into the game. And so at the bottom of the Ninth, with Nog on third, Rom comes out in uniform.
It's not the best time for their worst player to take the plate, but that's not the point, and everyone cheers him on as he awkwardly shuffles forward. Two strikes later and it's not looking good, until O'Brien considers that maybe Rom can bunt Nog in for the run. They try to give the hand signal, but he only stares back at them, confused. The Vulcan pitcher, tired of waiting, throws the ball... which through sheer dumb luck ricochets off the distracted Rom's bat. Nog slides into home, and the Niners go wild, lifting Rom up on their shoulders! Annoyed by this disruption, Solok tries to get Odo's attention, briefly grabbing his arm before realizing his mistake. Odo tosses him off of the field like he did to Sisko (though with a sly grin on top).
The Niners effectively forfeit the game with the final score of 10-1, but they celebrate at Quark's as though it were a victory. They know how stacked the odds were against them, and so does Solok, who seems chagrined by how much fun they're having. He asserts that the Niners are just fabricating a victory from a loss, but the Niners just laugh at how triggered the supposedly emotionless Vulcan seems to be. While they share a round of drinks, Kira tosses Sisko a gift: a baseball signed by the team.
This episode contains examples of
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Rom was initially kicked off the team for being legendarily awful at baseball. Near the end of the game, with nothing to lose, Sisko makes Rom the pinch hitter.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: While the costume department otherwise went whole hog on the baseball outfits, it was too expensive/time-consuming to create custom batting helmets for the Ferengi players. They bat in caps instead — even though in-universe, the complex Ferengi brain structure would probably need even more protection than ordinary humanoids'.
- Accidental Hero: Rom successfully bunts by pure accident.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Cadet Sisko's idea to challenge Solok to a wrestling match. Looking back, Sisko himself admits how stupid it was.
- Answer Cut: Jake asks his father who he plans to get to fill an empty spot on the team. Cut to him welcoming Kasidy back to the station right before making the recruiting pitch.
- Artistic License – Sports: The Vulcan runner who failed to touch home plate before returning to the dugout would, in reality, haven't been ruled out without the need to tag him, at least by the time the episode was filmed. The scene was apparently based on an incident that Ira Steven Behr witnessed in Little League.
- Author Appeal: The culmination of showrunner Ira Steven Behr's passion for baseball as written into the series. In fact, it is based on an episode of Fame, of all things, that he wrote (though he is not credited for writing this episode).
- Baseball Episode: With Sisko's obsession, it had to happen eventually.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Sisko asks Odo to umpire the game, telling him that Odo is the only one Sisko would trust to be impartial. When the time comes down to it, Sisko intentionally touches Odo while arguing about Worf's called third strike. Odo quotes the exact rule in the book about touching the umpire.
- Big "WHAT?!": Sisko's reaction when Odo ejects him for violating the hands-off-the-umpire rule.
- Breather Episode: A comedy episode after some very heavy material.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Implied. How such a blatantly racist jerkass as Solok made it to command level in the first place is not directly addressed, but he has two Christopher Pike Medals of Valor to his name. This suggests that Starfleet is putting up with his BS because with the Dominion War on, they need all the ships they can get and presumably, racism aside, he's a highly-competent captain to his all-Vulcan crew.
- Champions on the Inside: The match was by no means close, but considering the odds, even the single score by the Niners is enough to take the piss out of the Vulcans. Or more specifically Solok, as the rest of the Logicians seem (appropriately) emotionally uninvested in the game.
- Chekhov's Classroom: Some of the baseball terms discussed early in the episode come into play during the game, like the "Fancy Dan" and the bunt.
- Chekhov's Skill: Ezri reminds the audience of her third host's gymnastics career. She uses a gymnastics move to catch a fly ball.
- Continuity Nod:
- O'Brien's bum shoulder comes back to bite him once again.
- Solok congratulates Sisko on earning his first Christopher Pike Medal of Valor, which he received in "Tears of the Prophets".
- Sisko says he challenged Solok to a wrestling match, which calls back to several previous episodes where he mentioned wrestling in school.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The Vulcans win, 10-1. Not that the Niners care at the end.
- Sisko talks about receiving one from Solok in a wrestling match back at the academy. The fact that Sisko was drunk didn't help.
- Dated History: Odo quotes the correct number of the rule that Sisko broke for when the episode was filmed late in The '90s, but the rules have since then been re-organized. Maybe Sisko gave Odo an outdated rulebook.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: In which the team gets Solok's goat.
- Fantastic Racism: Solok considers other humanoids inferior to Vulcans, hidden under a thin veneer of "logic". It's to the point where he commands one of the very few front-line starships in The Federation that's manned by only one species. In addition, he repeatedly refers to the Niners as "humans" despite the team including three Ferengi, a Trill, a Klingon and two Bajorans (meaning it's not even plurality-human, let alone majority or entirely so). At one point, Ezri responds "Did I forget to wear my spots today?"Quark: All that intelligence and he doesn't know what a 'hew-mon looks like!
- Foregone Conclusion: A team of Vulcans, who are naturally stronger than most humanoid races and have been practicing baseball for some time already, versus three human baseball fans and their Ragtag Team of Misfits who only just recently started training. Sisko's team never really had a chance.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: You can read the signatures of the various players on the ball in the very end. Quark signs his name by drawing a Ferengi head in place of the Q, and Worf's name is written in suitably blunt capital letters.
- Game of Nerds: The crew is baffled and incredulous at baseball's many rules, exceptions, and complexities. Appropriately, Vulcans excel at it.
- Genius Bruiser: Solok has a mind like a steel trap and is physically superior to Sisko as well. He's all too aware of his gifts.
- Gilligan Cut: Benjamin makes Kasidy promise not to tell anyone the story of why he and Solok don't get along.Kasidy: I promise.
(cut to Kasidy with the Niners)
Kasidy: He made me promise not to tell you, so you'll have to keep it under your hats. - Graceful Loser: The team take their loss so well that it prompts the supposedly emotionless Solok to get annoyed, since he wanted to humiliate Sisko yet again.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: To be expected from a group of people who don't share the Sisko obsession with baseball.Quark: And you can barely spin a dabo wheel, much less kick a ball around a field.
Leeta: Shows how much you know. You don't kick the ball. (to Ezri) Do you? - Hand Wave: Sisko has Solok dismiss the crowd for most of their game because the Niners never practiced with the crowd activated. Never mind the effect this had on the episode's budget...
- Hero of Another Story: Solok has twice been decorated with the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor. Given that Sisko received his Medal of Valor for planning and leading the retaking of DS9, Solok and his ship must have done some pretty badass stuff offscreen to earn it twice.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Sisko makes Odo the umpire because he knows that Odo will impartially enforce the rules. This bites Sisko in the ass when Odo ejects him for violating the rule against making physical contact with the umpire. Of course, Odo later ejects Solok for violating the same rule, albeit with far more glee.
- Improvised Training: The Niners take their training off the diamond as well, such as when Quark has his waiters toss him glasses from the second floor to practice his catching.
- It's Personal: Sisko quickly starts obsessing over turning his staff into a good team and beating Solok, which they don't approve of until they find out why he hates Solok so much.
- Jerkass Has a Point: It may seem like Sisko picked up the Jerkass Ball when he kicks Rom off the team, but Rom himself admits that he's not a good player, meaning that he's more of a liability than an asset. What makes the team unhappy about it is that they're in it for the fun, not understanding that Sisko's grudge against Solok has him entirely focused on winning.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After the Niners make one run, Sisko and the team give up the rest of the game, figuring they're down by nine anyways. They start celebrating, causing Solok to get thrown out of the game when he touches Odo in protest. (Technically, the Niners won since the Logicans only fielded nine players (as seen in the anthem), so they would not have had enough players to maintain the required team.)
- Large Ham:
- Odo really takes to his position as umpire.
- Rather than join the chorus of "Hey, batter batter" when prompted for infield chatter, Worf trumpets, "Death to the opposition!"
- Lightning Bruiser: Vulcans aren't just stronger, but a lot faster than humans too, as a young drunk Sisko found out the hard way.
- Ludicrous Precision: Gets brought up in Sisko's office:Sisko: It's been a long time.
Solok: Ten years, two months, five days.
Sisko: You mean you don't know it to the minute?
Solok: Of course I do. But humans are often irked by such precision. Especially the more emotional humans. - The Main Characters Do Everything: Sisko only invites main and recurring characters to join his team. You'd think that, with the stakes as they are, Sisko would do a survey of the athletic talents of everyone on the station to form his team. (There are normally about 300 permanent residents on the station.)
- Match Cut: At the end of the episode, Sisko tosses the baseball (now signed by his crew), and as the camera slows so it hovers in mid-air, it fades into a shot of Deep Space Nine from space.
- The Mutiny: The Niners almost start one when Rom gets thrown off the team. Rom himself defuses it.
- National Anthem: We finally hear the Federation anthem before the game starts. This is the only time to date in franchise history that the anthem of the United Federation of Planets has been heard. As is appropriate for the baseball stadium setting (and with no audience to sing any lyrics), the anthem is purely instrumental.
- Not So Above It All: Odo performs his responsibility as umpire with his usual detached gravitas, but there are hints that he's having just as much fun as the rest of the crew. Kira notices him in his office before the match, practicing putting the proper panache into his calls, and he has a clear moment of schadenfreude when Solok gives him an excuse to eject him from the game.
- Oh, Crap!: A subdued one when Solok grabs Odo's shoulder while protesting the Niners' celebration of their only run, and then remembers that touching the umpire is forbidden. Odo, of course, is more than happy to eject him.
- Percussive Therapy: Kasidy invites Sisko to indulge in this, since he looks like he wants to. Instead, he calms down and tells her why he's so mad.
- Pet the Dog: Sisko brings back the holographic crowds to cheer Rom on when he goes to bat.
- Plot Hole: Averted: When Sisko talks to the senior staff, he mentions that the game will be held in Holosuite 5, but when Rom and Leela ask about tryouts, Bashir and O'Brien mention their being held on Holosuite 4. They are using Quark's holosuites, on which they have to book time, so he might have 5 scheduled for the game, but 4 would be open for the tryouts. The programs would be the same in either.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Solok technically won his baseball game, but in the process Sisko finally learned to stop caring about Solok's racist stunts.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Niners: the Captain of DS9, his son, his freighter captain girlfriend, the station's former-insurgent first officer, a genetically-augmented doctor, a perpetually injured engineer, a proud Klingon, a Trill who just inherited the Dax symbiont, a Dabo girl, and three Ferengi. Of this motley crew, only Sisko and his family have any experience with baseball, Worf and Bashir are the only ones who are a physical match for the Vulcans, and one of the Ferengi is so hilariously inept at the game that he gets thrown off the team (until the very end).
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Odo is named umpire because he is the only one who will be completely impartial. This is later evidenced when he ejects an out-of-control Sisko.
- Rules Lawyer: Odo, who quotes paragraph and subsection as he ejects Sisko and later ejects Solok for the same infraction.
- School Yard Bully All Grown Up: Solok. Apparently he built his entire academic career around continuing to taunt Benjamin Sisko.
- Serious Business:
- Obviously it is for Sisko, for whom baseball has always been a very personal thing. He finally realizes how much his team is trying when Rom is in the stands watching and applauding. He kicks Rom back onto the team.
- Worf humorously takes baseball as seriously as battle.
- Before even learning what Solok's crew has challenged them to, Worf confidently announces, "We will destroy them!"
- Also, when told the Vulcan's player didn't touch the plate: "Find him and kill him!"
- When prompted for infield chatter, he shouts, "Death to the opposition!"
- Smug Smiler: Odo when he gets to eject Solok.
- "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe. Sisko berates the team for not being as worked up about the game as he is and even kicks Rom off for his Epic Fail attempts at baseball. After getting kicked out of the game himself and watching Rom's reactions as a spectator, however, he realizes that baseball is supposed to be about fun.
- Straw Vulcan: Solok uses logic and Vulcan stoicism to justify his Fantastic Racism towards "emotionally handicapped" species.
- Team Hand-Stack: Done by the Niners (minus Sisko) when vowing to help him defeat Solok.
- 13 Is Unlucky: Rom's number is 13, and he proves to be a disastrous player. However, he does get lucky in the end.
- Training Montage: With plenty of Improvised Training off the diamond.
- Underdogs Always Win: Averted. They lose, but after Rom's bunt and Nog's run, the Niners celebrate as though they had.
- Villainy-Free Villain: Solok isn't evil, but he is a Jerkass to the core. He teaches his crew baseball for no other reason than to humiliate Sisko at his favorite game. Also Solok's crew, who are probably only playing to please their captain, just like Sisko's crew is doing for him. The Vulcans even attend the after-game party and can be seen casually chatting with some of the Niners.
- Walking Disaster Area: After the first practice, half the team is in the infirmary being treated for various injuries. Turns out that Rom was responsible for most of them. (The exception is Ezri, who tried to channel Emony's gymnastics and failed.)
- We Win Because You Didn't: By the end, the Niners are celebrating getting a single point past the Vulcans, depriving Solok of the crushing victory he wanted. This makes him partially lose his cool.
- You Are in Command Now: O'Brien takes charge of the Niners after Sisko gets ejected.
- You Know I'm Black, Right?: Inverted when the Vulcan-supremacist Captain Solok makes a broad generalization about the inferiority of human emotions, without regard for several cast members in the scene who are not, in fact, human (in fact, only five of Sisko's eleven team members are human).Ezri Dax: Did I forget to wear my spots today?
Quark: All that intelligence and he still doesn't know what a human looks like!
