One of these days I will actually get enough sleep, but that day is not today. Never the less I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It has some great humor and very touching character moments. Also nice to see that Sisko isn't above holding a grudge against a stuck up vulcan. This episode pays off a bunch of the relationships that have been building throughout the show including Sisko's lifelong love of baseball. Odo as the umpire is totally perfect too.
The episode begins with a Federation ship crewed by vulcans docking at DS9 and the captain coming to SIsko's office. It is clear there is tension between the two, the vulcan is unhappy that the repairs will take longer than he would like and he seems intent on belittling Sisko for working on a station, not on the front lines with him. It ends with him challenging Sisko and his senior staff to a competition, but we aren't told what kind. Sisko calls a meeting of his senior staff to lay down the challenge, the field of battle will be a baseball diamond. Everybody is in board, but they aren't sure about their skills. Cut to montage of everybody trying to learn the rules before tryouts.
Tryouts go pretty decently overall, other than Rom. He is pretty much entirely terrible. After the first practice almost half the team is in the infirmary. And at least two of them are injuries caused by Rom. Sisko recruits Odo to umpire and he isn't sure, but agrees to do it. We also learn that Sisko and the vulcan captain got in a drunken wrestling match in the academy and that he vulcan has used it as an example in a nearly endless series of papers about why vulcans are better than humans. Everybody seems ready, but just before the game Ben is forced to pull Rom off the team, he is just too terrible and honestly dangerous to those around him.
The game starts and it isn't off to much of a start with the vulcans scoring 4 in the first inning, but the Niners as they dub themselves start to slow them down as the game goes on with the score 7 to 0 at the end of the fourth inning. Kira manages to get on base in the fifth with two outs, but Worf strikes out and gets angry with Odo for what he feels was a bad call. Sisko manages to get in his way and gets himself thrown out instead. Things start looking up a bit then and the team is clearly fired up. In the 9th inning down 10 to 0 the Niners get Nog to third base with no outs and Sisko convinces O'Brien to call in a substitution, Rom! Rom gets to the plate and figures out the signal to bunt and manages to bunt his son home scoring on the vulcans. They carry him off the field over the objections of the vulcan captain. After in Quark's Sisko is in an ever better mood and gets to taunt his old rival a bit more.
Review: A really fun episode, and doubly so since I am in fact a baseball fan. It is interesting how much more I have noticed on this watchthrough how much Trek actually criticizes the vulcan way. Sure they are good at some stuff, but they really lack heart.
8 out of 10
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