The true story behind Star Trek’s most famous baseball game
From Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek was often strangely fixated on baseball. Deep Space Ninefor example, shows that Captain Sisko has a great passion for the ancient sport and keeps a baseball in his office as a prize. This spin-off even gave us a hilarious baseball game pitting the DS9 crew against snooty Vulcans, and fans still love cosplaying by wearing the same Niners baseball jerseys they wore in the episode “Take Me.” “Out To the Holosuite”. Star Trek, though the most The most famous baseball game was probably the one referenced The next generation Episode “Evolution”, which refers to the National League tiebreaker showdown between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants in 1951.
Star Trek author loves baseball
If you’re one of the many Star Trek fans who doesn’t watch much real-life baseball, a major plot point in “Evolution” might have been confusing. This episode is about an eccentric scientist with a passion for baseball who, instead of recreating classic games in the holodeck, recreates them in his head as a kind of reward for himself. He demonstrates his ability to do this by playing “Lockman on the first, Dark on second, Thomson at the plate, Branca on the mound” is recited, which directly references the aforementioned game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants, although the recount makes some crucial errors.
Star Trek: The next generation Showrunner Michael Piller wrote Evolution and is a huge baseball fan (more on that later), and he chose this game because it’s so special. This clash of baseball titans led to what became known as the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.” That’s the affectionate nickname for New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson’s walk-off home run in the ninth inning that enabled his team to win the National League pennant. This made the 1951 game unforgettable for sports lovers, but the baseball superfan at the heart of “Evolution,” Dr. Paul Stubbs, actually misses important details when narrating the game.
Despite Star Trek guru Michael Piller’s great love of baseball, he got a few details wrong when he wrote Stubbs: “Lockman on first, Dark on second, Thomson at the plate, Branca on the mound.” There Giants player Clint Hartung was substituted, the lineup was slightly different. To be precise, former prodigy Stubbs should have said, “Lockman at second, Hartung at third, Thomson at the plate, Branca on the mound.”
While he may have gotten a few details wrong, we doubt the late, great Piller lost any sleep over that mistake…after all, it was that Star Trek script and its baseball references that helped him land the job as showrunner to get from The next generation. Before Piller, Michael Wagner briefly served as showrunner but soon left the production, and the Evolution script helped Piller win over executive producer Rick Berman. Piller later said that Berman “shared my love of baseball” and that Stubbs’ speech “hit him right between the eyes,” leading to a “partnership” in which Piller became showrunner of that insanely popular game Science fiction Spin off.
There you have it, folks: If that Star Trek: The Next Generation In the episode “Evolution,” I wasn’t that into baseball, Michael Piller might not have gotten the showrunner job, and TNG could have continued to be something of a hot mess instead of “evolving” into one of the greatest shows in television history. And without Berman and Piller’s shared love of America’s greatest pastime, we might not have seen Captain Sisko’s own baseball obsession, let alone “Take Me Out To the Holosuite,” a near-perfect DS9 episode.
As a franchise, Star Trek fans have a lot to thank for the creators’ passionate love of baseball, which is why we’re here to ask the big question: When is Trek baseball legend Buck Bokai coming? Finally Get his own PicardSolo series in style?
