Baseball and Star Trek in perfect harmony!

As I often tell anyone who will listen, I was not always a baseball fan. I didn't grow up with cable TV, so I didn't see the Braves on TBS or any other baseball broadcasts. It wasn't until my father got DirecTV in June of 1996 and the big sporting event at the time was the College World Series that I fell in love with college baseball and soon learned that the school I had rooted for all my life, the South Carolina Gamecocks, were pretty darn good at it. It wasn't until about 7 years ago when Gamecock great Jackie Bradley, Jr. was called up to the Boston Red Sox that i declared myself a Red Sox fan and started attending Greenville Drive games occasionally as well as games when the Gamecocks and/or my true alma mater, the USC Upstate Spartans play at Fluor Field in downtown Greenville. 

My love of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was also not until later in life. I always had other priorities on Saturdays at the time and only caught pieces of it here and there. A few years ago when i finally caught on to the streaming thing, i decided to finally watch "DS9". I started on the stand alone CBS All-Access app, but soon after discovered it was also available on Amazon Prime with no additional fee.

I'm still not a "binge" watcher. I watch one episode at a time and then move on to something else. I've been watching "DS9" for what must be close to three years now. I have now reached season 7 and recently saw what has become my favorite episode "Take Me out to the Holosuite", which of course combined my two loves.

A Captain of an all Vulcan crew, who we learn later has a history with Sisko, comes to DS9 and ends up challenging Captain Sisko to a game of baseball in a holosuite program he acquired. Through the course of the episode we see Sisko coaching his potential team and hilarious scenes with the crew trying to figure out the rules of baseball. At one point Sisko kicks Rom (station Ferengi bar owner Quark's hapless brother) off the team.

The way the episode plays out next is rather brilliant. Rather than doing the obvious and having the "Niners" win in a glorious bottom of the 9th comeback, what happens in the game actually had me tearing up. Down 10-0, Sisko, having been banished to the stands by umpire Odo, gets acting coach O'Brian to make a substitution. With a runner on 3rd (for the first time in the game), Rom comes in. Sisko reactivates the crowd, which he had requested to be turned off before the game, and while trying to signal to Rom to bunt, Rom accidentally does so and the runner comes home. The "Niners" rush the field and carry Rom on their shoulders. The Vulcan Captain objects, touches umpire Odo and gets tossed out just as Sisko had for the same reason earlier. 

In the epilogue, the "Niners" are celebrating, Sisko apologizes to Rom and a rather irritated (though he tries not to show it) Vulcan Captain chastises Sisko for celebrating what I believe he called a "manufactured victory". The crew are unphased, however and the celebration continues as they jeer the Vulcan Captain. 

As I said I was tearing up for about the last 15 minutes of the episode. At a time when we are sadly lacking sports of any kind including baseball (sorry KBO you're not quite doing it for me) it was a welcome reminder of the power of sports and the ability it has to put smiles on our faces. And tears of joy in our eyes.