Extra Innings
"It's been said that the body is the means through which an athlete can best reveal the dynamic potential of the human spirit. But what happens when the means to that expression is injured beyond repair? Meet Ed Hamner, a once-prominent player in the big leagues. A man who's never resolved himself to his fate as a non-participant, but who will soon be forced to bat — in the Twilight Zone."
Ed Hamner (Marc Singer) was once a baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, forced into early retirement after sustaining a permanent, crippling injury to his leg. As such, he has since become a baseball fanatic, content with collecting cards and watching games whenever he can. While Ed's wife Cindy (Tracey Cunningham) rebukes his passion for baseball and his insistence on recapturing his glory days, his young neighbor and good friend Paula (Amber Lea Watson) shares his passion immensely. When Paula shows Ed a vintage card of a baseball player named Monte Hanks, the card happens to turn into a large portal. Stepping through the portal, Ed finds himself in 1910, his leg healed and everyone thinking him to be Monte ready to play. As Monte, Ed improves the stats on the late player's card every time he plays a game in Monte's stead, but Cindy gradually grows more and more frustrated with her husband's obsession, gaining the idea to burn the magic card in the fireplace.
Tropes
- Alternate History: Up-and-comer Monte is said to have been beaned in the face with a wild pitch and entered a fatal coma in 1910, two years into his career. Thanks to Paula's magic baseball card, former player Ed lives Monte's life and winds up preventing his death. Once the card is torn up at the end, keeping Ed in Monte's body, he went on to have a long and utterly successful career.
- Awful Wedded Life: Cindy treats Ed as a waste of space, sick and tired of his baseball obsession. She even goes so far as to burn his baseball cards when he doesn't show up at dinner or the job interview she arranged for him.
- Baseball Episode: Ed is an ex-baseball player whose career ended early because of a permanent leg injury. Thanks to a magic baseball card he gets from his young friend Paula, Ed possesses the body of Monte Hanks, the player depicted on the card who never woke up after getting hit in the face with a ball in 1910, to continue playing baseball. Deciding that Ed is much happier living the dream that was taken from him than putting up with the aloof and emotionally abusive Cindy, Paula tears the card in half, allowing Ed/Monte to have a long, fruitful baseball career.
- Career-Ending Injury: Ed was a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, but he severely injured his left knee during a game, giving him a permanent limp.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After having a promising career in his favorite sport cut short and spending a good chunk of life with an emotionally abusive wife, Ed is sent back to 1910 to live out the dream he was denied, becoming the batting champion of his time.
- Fantasy Keepsake: Ed is sent back in time to 1910 by the baseball card of Monte given to him by Paula, which turns into a time portal and allows Ed to live as Monte. While there, he experiences the baseball strike to the face that originally put Monte into an irreversible coma. When he returns to 1988, he knows that the experience was real because his nose is still injured, and he also has a large bruise on his left leg from sliding to second base.
- Henpecked Husband: Cindy is completely unsupportive of Ed, whose promising baseball career ended when he ruined his knee two years earlier. She tells him that he can't spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity and belittles his continued obsession with the National Pastime, even going so far as to burn his extensive card collection.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Ed, a down-and-out baseball player in his late 30s, is good friends with Paula, his 12-year-old neighbor and a huge baseball fan who idolizes him.
- It's All Junk: Ed has been collecting baseball cards since he was a child, having built up a collection of dozens, possibly hundreds, in 1988. Cindy doesn't see the point in collecting them and accuses him of wasting his money. Ed later decides to use the card of Monte to travel back to 1910 for a third time instead of giving a speech at VectroComp as Cindy arranged him to. As revenge, Cindy burns all of his cards one by one, telling Paula that each one represents a day that her ex-husband wasted.
- Nice Girl: Paula, a tomboyish baseball player every bit as passionate about the National Pastime as Ed, whom she idolizes. She gives Ed the baseball card that lets him get a second chance at his cut-short career in the past, and tears it up when she determines that he's way happier there than he is with Cindy.
- Point of No Return: With his third use of the magic baseball card, Ed winds up in a World Series-deciding game that goes to extra innings. As a result, he unintentionally winds up blowing off a job interview and dinner with Cindy. As a result, Cindy decides to leave Ed and starts burning his baseball card collection. Paula shows up just in time to prevent the card of Monte from being burned, but when she realizes Cindy never actually understood or cared about Ed, nor will she ever, she decides to tear up the card and leave Ed in the past, correctly deciding that he'd have a happier, more fulfilling life as Monte.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: Paula gives Ed a 1910 baseball card showcasing a player named Monte Hanks, who bears a remarkable physical resemblance to Ed with similarly identical stats to Ed's first two years in the Major Leagues. The card is actually a time portal that allows Ed to travel to 1910 and assume Monte's identity, scoring a home run on his first trip there. After returning to 1988, he shows Paula the card, which now says that Monte scored eight home runs instead of seven. After Ed goes back to 1910 for the third time, Paula tears the card in half, knowing that he would rather remain in the past. That night, the stats on the card change before Paula's eyes. As Monte, Ed played in the Major Leagues until the early 1920s. When Paula turns the card around, the photograph is now of Ed, smiling brightly, with the caption "Batting Champion" underneath him.
- Shout-Out: The closing narration describes Ed as "an eternal boy of summer," a reference to Roger Kahn's book The Boys of Summer.
- Time Travel Episode: Injured baseball player Ed receives a 1910 baseball card from his neighbor Paula, depicting a player named Monte Hanks who looks just like him. Entering the time portal the card produces allows Ed to travel to 1910 and play as Monte, free of any injury.
"Ed Hamner; Monte Hanks. To some, a mere face on a trading card. But to a special friend, he is an eternal boy of summer. An athlete who found himself drafted by a unique team, in a league that plays its games — in the Twilight Zone."
