TEASER
In Roswell in 1947, there is a baseball team playing. The pitcher is really bad and keeps hitting the balls into the cactus behind the plate.
Exley comes up to bat. He hits the ball really far, but it’s a foul. The catcher from the other team is harassing him that he could be playing for the Yankees, because he is such a good player. Exley hits a homerun.
Suddenly Klu Klux Klan (spelling?) men ride in on horses, wanting Exley. Of course the team won’t let them get him.
The pitcher actually throws a good ball – which hits one of the riders in the head, knocking him onto the ground. He continues to do this until all of them are on the ground, and then members of the team pick up their guns.
The members start to demask some of the men. Someone takes the mask off of one of them, and underneath is a grey alien.
Everyone runs away screaming.
ACT ONE
FBI HEADQUARTERS
Mulder is reading in his office when Scully comes in. The television is on a baseball game. Scully stands on a chair looking outside.
SCULLY: Mulder, it is such a gorgeous day outside. Have you ever entertained the idea of trying to find life on this planet?
MULDER: I have seen the life on this planet, Scully, and that is exactly why I’m looking elsewhere.
Scully opens a bag she has with her and pulls out an ice cream cone, which she starts to eat. Mulder finally looks up at her and says playfully:
MULDER: Did you bring enough ice cream to share with the rest of the class?
SCULLY: It’s not ice cream, it’s a not-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle.
MULDER: Ugh. I bet the air in my mouth tastes better than that. You sure know how to live it up, Scully.
SCULLY: Oh, you’re Mr. Live-it-up, Mulder, you’re really Mr. Squeeze-every-last-drop-out-of-this-sweet-life. Aren’t ya?
SCULLY has stepped down off of the chair.
SCULLY: On this precious Saturday, you’ve got us grabbing life by the testes, stealing reference books from the FBI library in order to go through New Mexico newspaper obituaries for the years 1940 to 1949, and for what joyful purpose?
MULDER: Looking for anomalies, Scully. Do you know how many flying disk reports there were in New Mexico in the 1940s?
SCULLY: I don’t care. Mulder, this is a needle in a haystack. These poor souls have been dead for fifty years. Let them rest in peace. Let sleeping dogs lie.
MULDER: I, I won’t sit idly by as you hurl cliches at me. Preparation is the father of inspiration.
SCULLY: Necessity is the mother of invention.
MULDER: The road of excess leads to palace of wisdom.
SCULLY: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.
MULDER: I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti dreamsicles!
Mulder lunges at Scully trying to wrestle the cone away from her. Scully shouts "No!" while laughing. Mulder gets a little bite before it lands on the book he was looking at. "Mulder." Scully says. They are laughing and having fun.
Scully notices that Mulder was only reading about baseball.
SCULLY: Mulder! You cheat! I can’t believe that you’ve been reading about baseball this whole time!
MULDER: I’m reading the box scores, Scully. You’d like it. It’s like the Pythagorean theorem for jocks. It distills all the chaos and action of any game in the history of all baseball games into one perfect rectangular sequence of numbers. I can look at this little box and I can recreate exactly what happened (Mulder points at the paper) on some sunny, summer day back in 1947. It’s like the numbers talk to me. They, they comfort me. They tell me that even though lots of things can change, some things remain the same. It’s…
SCULLY: Boring. (off his look; smiling) Mulder, can I ask you a personal question?
MULDER: Of course not.
SCULLY: Did your mother ever tell you to go outside and play?
MULDER looks down at the page with ice cream on it and notices something.
MULDER (to himself): Is that, Arthur Dales?…
In the picture are The Alien Bounty Hunter, Arthur Dales, and Josh Exley.
SCULLY: Mulder?
MULDER (faking a sneeze): Achoo!
MULDER rips the page out of the book.
SCULLY: You just defaced property of the U.S. government!
MULDER runs out of the office.
SCULLY: You rebel.
WASHING, DC
Mulder goes to see Arthur Dales, but another man answers the door. He tells Mulder that he *is* Arthur Dales, that the Arthur Dales he’s talking about is his brother. Their mother wasn’t very imaginative with names. They had a sister and a goldfish with the same name.
Mulder asks him about the picture, and about the Alien Bounty Hunter. Dales asks Mulder:
DALES: Agent Mulder, do you believe that love can make a man shape-shift?
Mulder stumbles a little bit and laughs, not sure what to say (shippy:).
MULDER: I guess women change men all the time.
Mulder shrugs. Dales corrects Mulder that he means a passion like for Mulder’s work. He asks if a passion like that can make you shape-shift from a man to something other than a man.
MULDER: What exactly has your brother told you about me?
Dales brings out a toy ball player thing that he tells Mulder to put a dime into, and it will tell him a story. Mulder does.
ROSWELL MUNICIPAL BALLFIELD
JUNE 29TH, 1947
Dales’s brother (the regular Arthur Dales) goes to protect the ball player Josh Exley, who is on the baseball team, "Greys." He tells Ex that someone is trying to kill him and that he’s there to protect him. He tells him that since it is America, he has the choice of going with him or he will go on the bus with Ex. Dales ends up on the bus.
On the bus, when Exley is sleeping, Dales sees his reflection in the window – it’s of a grey alien.
ACT TWO
Mulder is talking to Dales (the brother) about the story while he is getting a hotdog. He tells him that the story is pretty clever.
MULDER (in a funny voice): ET steal home! ET steal home!
Dales tells him that he didn’t make it up. He says that all the good players are aliens. None of the great ones fit in – not in this world or any other world. Not until they step between the white chalk lines or onto the outfield grass. Mulder guesses that he’s talking metaphorically, but he says he’s only speaking the truth, and he calls him Agent McGyver.
ROSWELL MUNICIPAL BALLFIELD
JUNE 30TH, 1947
Ex is playing baseball when the pitcher hits him in the head with the ball. Dales and the other players rush over to him. They ask him standard questions to see if he can think. When they ask where he is from, he tells them Makin, Georgia. He’s all right and he gets up to play more ball. Dales sees Ex’s mitt on the ground. It’s got green goo all over it. He picks it up.
Dales calls the police department in Georgia, saying he’s doing a background check and asks about someone named Josh Exley. The man tells him that only one on record with that name is eleven years old. The man on the other end is the Alien Bounty Hunter.
Dales has Ex’s baseball mitt analyzed.
Ex is ready to play ball until he finds out that scouts from the Yankees are there to watch. He purposely plays really bad. However, on the last try he hits a homerun.
On the bus, Dales confronts Ex, asking him if that’s why he won’t go into the major leagues, because they’ll find out his secret, that his name isn’t Exley. Ex tells him to make sure that he’s chasing the right secrets.
Later that night after hearing something, Dales goes into Ex’s hotel room. Standing before him is a grey dressing in a baseball uniform. Dales gives a "girly scream" and the grey screams right back at him. Dales faints.
ACT THREE
The alien slaps Dales in the face, but he keeps on fainting. He tells Dales that it is Ex, and that this is what he really looks like. Dales is still freaking out, so he asks if this would make it easier for him: Ex shape-shifts into a woman. He/she climbs on Dales, who says that somehow that would make it harder. One of the other players come into the room.
On the bus, Ex tells Dales that he fell in love with baseball and couldn’t go back to his home planet. He says how such an "unnecessary thing" meant everything to him. Dales believes him.
Back in the present, Mulder is questioning Dales again about the legitimacy of what he’s telling him.
DALES: Trust the tale, Agent McGyver, not the teller. That which fascinates us is by definition true, speaking metaphorically, of course.
MULDER: OK, so, is Ex a *man* who is metaphorically an *alien,* or an *alien* who is metaphorically a *man,* or something in-between who is literally an alien-human hybrid?
DALES ignores him and hands him a drink.
MULDER: It’s official. I am a horse’s ass.
Back in Roswell, Dales finds out that the man he asked to analyze the glove was going to send it to Washington, which he doesn’t want. He wanted it to be kept private. The man tells him he will give it to him after he finishes up.
Suddenly Ex comes into the lab, saying that it’s his mitt. The man asks where he got the green stuff, which is like nothing he’s ever seen. He tells him it’s from Mars. He throws the guy through the door, killing him, and takes the mitt. As he walks out, he shape-shifts into the Alien Bounty Hunter.
ACT FOUR
Dales goes to warn Ex, telling him that he knows he isn’t a killer, but that he has to get out of there. He tells him that he knows – he’s going home. He also tells Dales to make sure he tells his kids about how he played baseball. He promises that he will.
Some cops come and threaten Dales about letting Ex go.
Next to him, Dales finds something Ex left for him. It’s a map and on it is marked "home" with a picture of a home plate. Dales rushes out to him.
Ex is playing baseball. This is the scene from the teaser. Ex hits his 61st run, making a record.
The men in horseback come up and are knocked off their horses. When they are demasked, everyone but Ex runs away.
The alien shape-shifts into the ABH. He tells Ex he has to kill him, which Ex knows, and tells him it’s for the best. Of course the ABH doesn’t like that he thinks that.
Dales is almost there.
He tells Ex to let him see his real face before he dies, as the assassin, he must do the same for him, so he can at least die with honor.
EXLEY: This is my true face.
The ABH stabs him in the back of the neck as Dales just gets there. The ABH rides away.
Dales races over to Ex. Ex tells him to get away, that his blood is toxic to humans. Dales tells him that it’s just blood. Ex looks at Dales’s hand. Sure enough it’s red blood. Ex smiles and laughs, and then closes his eyes and dies.
Mulder is standing at a home plate hitting baseballs when Scully comes up.
SCULLY: So, um, I get this message marked urgent on my answering service from a Fox Mantle telling me to come down to the park, for a very special, very early or very late birthday present. I don't see any nicely wrapped presents lying around, so, what gives?
MULDER: You never hit a baseball, have you, Scully?
SCULLY: No, I guess I have, uh, found more necessary things to do with my time, than slap a piece of horsehide with a stick.
MULDER: Get over here, Scully.
Scully walks over towards him. He wraps her in his arms and positions her with the bat.
SCULLY (nervously): Is this my birthday present, Mulder? You shouldn’t have.
MULDER (all in her ear): This ain’t cheap, I’m paying that kid ten bucks an hour to shag balls.
The camera pans to show a boy, and then pans back.
MULDER: Hey, it’s not a bad piece of ash, hugh?
SCULLY gives MULDER "the look" obviously thinking he said something else;)
MULDER: The bat. I’m talking about the bat…
Changing subjects…
MULDER: Now don’t strangle it, you just wanna shake hands with it…‘Hello Mr. Bat, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’ ‘Oh, no, no, Miss Scully, the pleasure is all mine.
SCULLY (giggling): What?
MULDER (making motions with himself, and Scully): Ok now we wanna, we wanna go *hips* before *hands.* Ok? And we wanna stride forward and turn. That’s all we’re thinkin’ about.
MULDER tentatively puts his hands on SCULLY’s hips to make the motions.
MULDER: So we go hips, before hands. All right?
SCULLY: Yes.
In a close-up, MULDER puts his hands on SCULLY’s hips again, this time, more firmly and more completely.
MULDER: One more time, hips before hands. Right?
SCULLY: Yeah.
MULDER: What is it?
SCULLY: Hips before hands.
MULDER: Right. We’re gonna wait on the pitch, we’re gonna keep our eye on the ball.
SCULLY: All right.
MULDER: Then we’re just gonna make contact. We’re not gonna think.
SCULLY: Yep.
MULDER: We’re just gonna let it fly Scully, OK?
SCULLY: Mmm, hmm.
MULDER: Ready?
SCULLY (moving her hands between Mulder’s): I’m in the middle.
MULDER moves so SCULLY moves, really swaying their hips.
MULDER: All right, fire away, poor boy.
MULDER and SCULLY hit the ball.
MULDER: Ooh! That’s good…All right, now what you may find as you’re concentrating on that little ball, the rest of the world just fades away. All your everyday nagging concerns (as they hit the balls, Scully is really laughing now), the ticking of your biological clock. How you probably couldn’t afford that nice, new suede coat on a G-Woman’s salary. How you threw away a promising career in medicine to hunt aliens with a crackpot, albeit brilliant, partner, your obscenely overdue triple-x bill, getting into the heart of a global conspiracy. Oh, I’m sorry Scully, those last two are my problems, not yours. (This whole time he is really leaning into her, moving with her.)
SCULLY: Shut up Mulder, I’m playing baseball.
Mulder and Scully continue to hit balls as the camera moves up to the sky, showing the balls turning into stars.
Overall Rating : 9.5
*Shippy Rating: 9.5
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, above the scale])*
(be sure to check out the images, quotes, reviews, ect. of older episodes, through the main pages.)
