Take Me Out to the Holosuite

The starship T'Kumbra docks at Deep Space Nine for repairs. Its captain, Solok, is a longtime rival of Sisko's, who believes that his all-Vulcan crew are superior in every respect, and challenges Sisko to a baseball game in the holosuite. Sisko accepts, recruiting his crew and friends on the station to form a team, even though he has only two weeks to get the team into shape, and only his son Jake and his girlfriend Kasidy Yates have played the game before.

Sisko's team trains hard and suffers injuries. When Sisko dismisses the unskilled Rom from the team, the squad nearly quits in protest. Sisko admits to Yates why he is taking Solok's challenge so seriously: At Starfleet Academy, Sisko drunkenly challenged Solok to a wrestling match after Solok provoked Sisko by mocking humans' illogical emotion-driven behavior. Solok won the match easily, and later used the incident as evidence that Vulcans are superior to humans, publishing multiple papers using the wrestling match as an example. Yates immediately tells the truth to the whole team, making them understand just how much this means to Sisko.

When the game begins, the Logicians (Solok's team) immediately build up a considerable lead. Sisko gets into an altercation with the umpire, security chief Odo, and is thrown out of the game for laying a finger on him.

When Rom's son Nog throws out a runner who failed to touch home plate, Sisko is reminded of why he loves baseball in the first place: its unpredictability. Seeing Rom's pride in his son and dejection at being excluded from the game, Sisko decides to allow him to play. Near the end and down 10-0, the Niners (Sisko's team) are desperate to score a run. Nog makes it to third base, and Rom has his first at-bat. Rom accidentally hits a perfect bunt, which brings Nog home, giving the Niners their only run in a 10-1 loss. The team's celebration confuses Solok, who protests to Odo, but also touches him so Odo ejects him too.

After the game, the crew relax at Quark's bar, toasting the triumph of team spirit over Vulcan superiority. Solok protests their celebration as a "manufactured victory", only to be mocked by the Niners. The team presents Sisko with a souvenir of the game: a baseball that his whole team has signed.[4]

Max Grodénchik, who plays Rom, is actually a baseball player in real life and considered going pro before deciding to become an actor. Because Grodénchik was so good at playing right-handed, he was forced to switch to playing exclusively left-handed on camera in order to give a convincingly "bad" performance.[5] Cinefantastique (Volume 38) noted that Michael Piller was fond of baseball and this influenced some of his productions.[6]

A baseball field of Loyola Marymount University in California, where the holosuite scenes were filmed

The outdoor scenes (in the holosuite) were shot at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California (USA).[7]

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" as the 16th out of 20 best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes.[8] The A.V. Club notes in its 2014 review of the episode, that it investigates the emotions of losing, and leadership of an 'underdog' sports team.[9]

In 2016, SyFy ranked this the 8th best holodeck episode of the Star Trek franchise.[10]

This episode is noted in the book Playing the Universe: Games and Gaming in Science Fiction as an example of gaming in science fiction, of spacecraft crew playing a game of baseball in a holographic simulation.[11]

The show is noted for its impact on fan culture, with reproductions of the baseball jersey featured in the television show made available for sale in the late 2010s.[12] This episode is noted for the cast of the showing forming a baseball team and being fitted with sports apparel of that game, the baseball jersey.[13] The baseball game holosuite program was rated by Gizmodo as the number #1 best holodeck program of Star Trek.[14] The episode is noted for exploring Sisko's interest in baseball and its humour.[15][16]

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" as the 61st best episode of all Star Trek episodes,[17] and the 16th best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[18]

In 2016, Vox rated this one of the top 25 essential episodes of all Star Trek.[19]

In 2019, CBR ranked this the 7th best holodeck-themed episode of all Star Trek franchise episodes up to that time.[20] In 2019, CBR rated "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" as the 15th funniest Star Trek episode.[16]

Sisko's strategy in assigning his players to positions was analyzed in a 2011 article at Baseball Prospectus.[2]

The starship T’Kumbra is referenced or utilized in several Star Trek novels.[3]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Take Me Out to the Holosuite

• Take Me Out to the Holosuite at IMDb
• "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" at TV.com

• Take Me Out to the Holosuite at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• Niners at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Niners at Memory Beta