SOUTH PARK LITTLE LEAGUE: THE LOSING EDGE
I was flipping around the TV dial last night trying to find something worthwhile to watch. It was getaway day so most of the baseball games ended early. The first football game of the new season was over. The only thing on was the Republican Presidential Convention in Minnesota, don’t know how the Metrodome didn’t explode from all the hot air, four more years, sheeesh, didn’t we get enough over the last eight years? Seriously, if you truly believe you’re better off than you were eight years ago, these poor kids are fighting an unwinnable war (how do you know when you’ve defeated terror?), all the big corporations are getting huge tax breaks & moving jobs out of the country, the deficit is growing larger every second with China buying our debt & selling us all their junk, the middle class is being squeezed out of the picture, and Big Brother is watching with cameras on every street corner. And we’re worried about Mexicans coming across the border to pick our produce, women being told they can’t make a decision about their own bodies, and whether Adam & Steve should wed and be as miserable as the straight marrieds. Don’t get me started!
Well I finally found worthwhile TV on the Comedy Network where South Park was airing a classic episode of their Little League team trying to lose rather than having to keep on playing boring baseball. Below is a recap of the episode, but my description doesn’t do it justice. If you ever get the chance, watch it!
The boys of South Park are involved in a Little League baseball team, despite the fact that they all hate the sport; they play because of the enthusiasm of their parents. When they win their final game they are initially elated, thinking the season is over, but then discover to their horror that they have to continue playing in the state championships. They decide to lose their next game, and thereby get out of the running for the championship, but the teams they oppose have exactly the same idea. They compete with Fort Collins, Greeley, and Pueblo (shown as being full of Mexicans). While trying desperately to lose, they manage again and again to beat the other team, whose efforts at throwing the game are more effective.
Meanwhile, Stan’s father, Randy, has taken up the hobby of being a “trash talking dad,” being generally obnoxious at every game so as to get into fights with other, equally obnoxious fathers. While training to be the best fighter he can be, he becomes terrified when he meets the Denver team’s “Bat Dad,” who wears a purple Batman cowl and cape, is much bigger than him, and behaves like an over-the-top professional wrestler. He decides not to attend his son’s game, as Stan and the others play the Denver game, which, if they win, will force them to waste the whole summer in the national circuit. The team drafts Kyle’s stereotypically Jewish cousin, Kyle Schwartz (distinguished in a previous episode as “Kyle One”) to join their team, knowing he is terrible at any sport. Even this strategy fails to work as the pitcher hits Kyle’s bat with the ball, resulting in a ground ball and subsequent home run after Kyle rounds the bases with no effort from Denver to throw him out. The kids realize that while they were practicing being bad, the other team got “really good at sucking” - they can even “bat themselves out,” purposely hitting pitches directly into South Park fielders’ gloves. Just as it seems the South Park team is sure to win, Stan’s dad shows up and begins harassing Bat Dad. The two get into a huge brawl that spills onto the field, and the umpires declare that if either man continues to fight their team will be disqualified. With the encouragement of his son and his team (though he doesn’t really know why) and other illusionary people in his head (including Mickey Goldmill from Rocky), Randy gets up and keeps fighting, and the South Park team is disqualified, leaving victorious Denver to go to the national circuit. Stan tells his father, “You’re the greatest,” as he is led away in handcuffs by the police in his underwear. After hearing that, Randy jumps for joy as the song “You’re the Best” plays.
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