Entry 024 - Sports Night 121 (Ten Wickets)
In which we get our bell rung
SERIES: Sports Night
EPISODE NUMBER: 121
TITLE: Ten Wickets
PREMIERE: 13 Apr 1999
WRITING CREDITS: Aaron Sorkin (teleplay), Matt Tarses (story)
DIRECTOR: Robert Berlinger
DRAFT SCRIPT: HTML
In my entry for the pilot of Sports Night, I indicated my general distaste for half-hour comedy as I age — as I’m sure has been evidenced by my ostensible sanity slippage over the past few entries. As I also alluded to then, however, I suspect Mr. Sorkin grew to regret placing himself in the realm of half-hour comedy as well. SportsCenter alum and partial inspiration for the show Keith Olbermann once described Sports Night as “an hour-long show packed into thirty minutes”, and I’d have to agree on that point.
This episode is perhaps the strongest evidence to support that point: the different plot threads herein come close to feeling rushed, if not crossing the line of rushed entirely. The continuing tonal dichotomy between straight comedy and drama also comes to a head in this episode as well, making for something of a discontinuity in at least one case. You could perhaps say this episode serves as a bridge episode… but I’ll have to save that call for after we step through it.
CASEY: Tomorrow it’ll be a week.
DAN: Yes.
CASEY: Since the time that somebody tried to blow up the building.
DAN: Yes, and I think it’s time for you to get over it.
CASEY: Doesn’t really seem like that’s gonna happen, though, does it?
DAN: I’m not optimistic.
Me neither.
DANA: I’m forgetting things.
NATALIE: What are you forgetting?
DANA: Nothing specific.
NATALIE: You’re not forgetting anything specific?
DANA: No, I just have this sense about me of forgetting things.
So we’re having Dana fulfill the role of the comic joke-butt — wonderful…sarcasm detected
DANA: You know, you’re almost tempted to consider the possibility that I’m just going stark raving mad.
JEREMY: Well, you sure don’t have to sell me.
Me neither!
CASEY: You agree.
DAN: I’m right with you.
CASEY: Thank you.
DAN: I, however, have decided to move on.
CASEY: So you’re not with me.
DAN: I am.
CASEY: No — I’m here, you’ve moved on.
So Casey’s fulfilling the role of comic foil to Dan’s straight man — got it.
DANA: There are three things that I’m doing. I’m losing things, I’m forgetting things… and there’s a third one.
Mortar? No, wait, that’s for that other thing.
NATALIE: Everybody, this is your nightly two-minute confirmation that I’m still Jeremy’s girlfriend.
(sigh) I can’t…
CASEY: We’ve got the Phoenix Suns in the morning, we’ve got Warren Moon at night, we got rhythm, music, the works.
Of course we got rhythm and music, this is Aaron Sorkin! Just don’t pay attention to the plot, is all…
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: I’m talking to myself
Previous instance: Sports Night 105
JEREMY: (into phone) You’re breaking up now. Hello? You’re breaking up. … Now you’re not there at all. There’s nobody there at all — yet I’m still talking.
Ah, shit, we still have to deal with the laugh track as well, eh?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Dangling modifier correction
Running count: 4
JEREMY: I was just talking to a guy in Trinidad.
DANA: When were you in Trinidad?
JEREMY: I wasn’t in Trinidad, the guy was in Trinidad. He was talking to me about a cricket match in New Delhi.
DANA: But —
JEREMY: No, neither of us were in New Delhi. The cricket match was in New Delhi, the guy was in Trinidad, I was right here.
I gotta say, it’s a little strange to have your stringer for a sports event be on the opposite side of the globe from said event. You might as well have your correspondent for the Tour de France be stationed in Melbourne.
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Among other things
Previous instances: Sports Night 112, 119
DANA: Have you seen my shoes?
JEREMY: What?
DANA: I’m missing my shoes.
JEREMY: Among other things, yes.
This is a friendly reminder that Dana could fire Jeremy anytime she wanted to.
NEW Topical Signature: Cricket
JEREMY: I don’t know anything about cricket.
…
DANA: You don’t know anything about cricket?
JEREMY: That’s what I’m saying.
…
JEREMY: Dana, a very big sports story is happening.
DANA: Jeremy, if a very big sports story was happening, we’d know it.
JEREMY: We do know it, we just don’t understand it.
How do you suppose the Sports Night staff will handle things when e-sports become a massive endeavor if they’re tripping over cricket like this?
JEREMY: You understand cricket?
DANA: I know a little something.
JEREMY: What?
DANA: I know they drink tea.
JEREMY: I think they do more than that.
DANA: I didn’t claim to be a student of the game. (others enter) Natalie, do you know anything about cricket?
NATALIE: I know they drink tea.
Understandable, since that’s the only thing in British cuisine with any flavor.
JEREMY: He took all ten wickets in an inning.
NATALIE: What does that mean?
JEREMY: I don’t know.
Alright, I read up as much on cricket as I had patience for in order to translate the feat being referenced herein. To start, a correction: the singular of innings in cricket is ‘innings’, not ‘inning’, so minus one point to Carol this episode. Also, the feat being referenced actually happened: on 7 February 1999 — a little over two weeks before our draft script is dated — at a match played in New Delhi, Indian bowler Anil Kumble became the second ever bowler to take ten wickets in an innings in a match of traditional cricket (which for some reason is called Test Cricket… don’t ask me why).
I won’t claim to understand fully everything I’ve read on the matter, but I think it will suffice to boil things down to three points:
- An innings in cricket (typically) ends when ten of the eleven batters on the field for the batting team are ‘dismissed’.
- A bowler dismissing a batter by bowling them out — which is what makes the bowler “take” the wicket the batter is defending — is only one of a number of ways to dismiss a batter, accounting for only roughly one in five dismissals.
- The fielding team in a cricket match has five bowlers on the field.
Taking those last two points into consideration, it becomes clear how one bowler taking all ten wickets is such a rare event. If we do the math — 0.2 to the eleventh power, approximately — we’re talking about an event with a roughly 0.000002% chance of happening.
DANA: Dan, do you know anything about cricket?
DAN: Ahhh, cricket — the game of the civilized sportsman.
DANA: Do you know anything about it?
DAN: No.
DANA: You like it, though?
DAN: What’s not to like? They wear white, they drink tea…
“Just don’t bother with the crumpets and the marmalade.”
NEW Dialogue Motif: BELGIUM™
JEREMY: This is an international news story. There are countries other than ours.
DANA: Yes — there is, for instance, Belgium, to name but one.
Y’all who think I’m joking by labelling this a Sorkinism — you have no idea what’s coming to you.
CASEY: What’s up?
JEREMY: Please don’t ask.
CASEY: Don’t ask about what?
DANA: Jeremy was on the phone with a man who was in Trinidad at the time who told him of a cricket player in New Delhi who got all ten wickets in one inning. (turns to JEREMY) Thought I was gonna blow it, didn’t you?
JEREMY: Yes, I did.
To be fair, Jeremy, the entire time you were explaining it to her she was dissing your dangling modifiers, so she definitely had a background process going to correct them all in a single sentence.
DANA: Folks, before we start, I’d like to say I’ve been forgetting things lately, losing things. I apologize in advance, you’ll all know it when you see it. Anyway, that’s all. (leaves the room, then after a few seconds comes back) We have a rundown meeting now.
And apparently correcting grammar is all she has the brainpower to do today.
JEREMY: This is from the World Observer.
“Cut! Come on, Josh, you know it says ‘International Herald’ in the script!”
JEREMY: It says if you compare it to baseball, it’d be like pitching three perfect games on three consecutive days.
CASEY: Really?
JEREMY: Wait… but not exactly.
CASEY: Why not exactly?
JEREMY: It says the final four batters scored sixteen runs.
CASEY: That doesn’t sound good.
JEREMY: Certainly doesn’t sound perfect.
To put the sixteen runs figure in perspective: the cricket match which inspired this subplot had a final score of 591 to 379. Sixteen runs really isn’t a lot in cricket. As for the comparison to a perfect game in baseball: in the late 1990s, the MLB-wide average on-base percentage reached an all-time high of .340, which means that 66% of at-bats ended with the batter not making it to first base. Thus, with 27 at-bats, the chance of a single perfect game (0.66^27) was roughly 0.0013% — and the chance of three perfect games in a row (0.66^81) was roughly 0.000000000000024%. Neither is really close to the percentage we came up with earlier for ten wickets to a single bowler in a cricket innings, so swing and a miss on that comparison… no pun intended.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Mr. Happy [Fun] Guy
DAN: Ask me my name.
CASEY: What’s your name?
DAN: Mr. Happy Guy.
CASEY: Rebecca?
DAN: Flying back tonight, meeting me after the show.
CASEY: Good.
DAN: I love it when she meets me after the show.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Dan.
JEREMY: Here’s something — “Raj Rajhan edged a Humble snorter to the slips where Suarav Ganguly dived to his right to pick up a low snatch.”
(DAN and CASEY stare blankly)
JEREMY: The humble snorter went straight to the slips and obviously the snatch was lower than it ordinarily is.
Cut between “final draft” and episode (my god, Mr. Sorkin, have mercy on yourself) where Dan and Casey stare blankly at Jeremy is Casey stating, “I don’t think I’m allowed to say that on the air.” It would definitely be easy for a layman to get their mind stuck in the gutter with some of those words…
DAN: I don’t believe it.
CASEY: What?
DAN: You’re not with me.
CASEY: I’m with you.
DAN: No, I wasn’t with you on the religious leaders deal so you’re — this is payback.
CASEY: Yes.
DAN: This is punitive.
CASEY: Yes, it is.
And as we all know, Dan prefers to make Casey crazy rather than the other way around!
NEW Plot Bunny: The Gay Jesus Bomb Scare™
CASEY: Somebody made a bomb threat because a radio deejay did a sketch where Jesus was gay. In the name of religion, this man threatened the lives of about 700 people. The absence of admonishment from the church is totally bizarre!
Man, Casey… you make it sound like “the church” speaks with one accord for all Christians. It’s been about two thousand years since that’s been the case, if it was ever the case at all.
DAN: I’m with you.
CASEY: Now you’re just saying that.
DAN: No, I’m not.
CASEY: You’re just saying that because you want me to be with you on the other thing.
DAN: I’m not.
CASEY: Yes, you are.
DAN: Yes, I am, but I can fake my enthusiasm and you’ll never know the difference.
Did you learn that from Rebecca?
DAN: Be happy for me.
CASEY: I am happy for you.
DAN: Are you faking it?
CASEY: Doesn’t matter.
That, he definitely learned from Lisa.
RETURNING Plot Bunny: Sabotaged game of Telephone
Previous instances: The American President; Sports Night 104
DANA: (into phone) You heard what I said, I said, “then why won’t you let me come down there”?
NATALIE: Is that Isaac?
DANA: (into phone) Natalie’s here.
NATALIE: Let me talk to him.
DANA: (into phone) She says she doesn’t want to talk to you.
NATALIE: Yes, I do.
DANA: (into phone) ‘Cause you’re a stubborn person and she’s not interested in speaking to stubborn people.
NATALIE: Yes, I am.
DAN: (into phone) No, she’s flat out refusing. … Goodbye. (hangs up)
That right there is a prime example of a boss abusing her power.
DANA: I can’t believe he won’t let us come there.
NATALIE: Leave it alone.
DANA: I won’t leave it alone.
NATALIE: No, I don’t think you will.
DANA: He’s being stubborn.
…
NATALIE: Dana, this is a fully grown man of enormous dignity and accomplishment. He’s covered wars and he’s dined with kings, and he can’t move the left side of his body and he doesn’t want us to see him like that.
Like that would ever stop any of you from visiting him anyway! Remember when Casey stayed with Isaac even when Isaac outright said he didn’t want any company? Somehow I don’t think Casey’s the only one on the staff who would do something like that.
DANA: … I don’t like Casey being mad at me.
He is?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Here’s the thing
Running count: 13
DANA: Here’s the thing.
NATALIE: What?
DANA: He’s got a point.
He does?! What the fuck are you talking about? Casey didn’t seem to have any problem with you last episode, and he’s been otherwise preoccupied this episode as well. Casey honestly doesn’t seem to me the type to hold a grudge, especially considering the reason he was mad at you two episodes ago isn’t a problem anymore. I’m almost inclined to wonder if the last four or five episodes somehow got out of their original order in the wake of Robert Guillaume’s stroke, but that’s probably getting too tin-foil-hat…
NATALIE: What are we doing tonight?
JEREMY: Nothing.
NATALIE: Really?
JEREMY: Yeah.
NATALIE: Dinner?
JEREMY: No.
NATALIE: Late movie?
JEREMY: No.
NATALIE: You wanna rent some porn?
Oh, good lord, Nat…
JEREMY: I know it’s been all of three weeks, I’ll see if I can speed up my nervous breakdown.
NATALIE: Nobody’s rushing you.
All evidence to the contrary…
NATALIE: Are you over it yet?
JEREMY: Natalie…
NATALIE: How about now?
See?
DAN: It’s an abacus.
NATALIE: Excellent.
DAN: An antique abacus.
JEREMY: Probably the only kind there are.
Au contraire, mon frère — Japan to this day still manufactures its flavor of abacus for use in primary school mathematics education!
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Get in the game
Previous instances: Malice; Sports Night 109
DAN: Natalie, I’m not sitting on the sidelines anymore, I’m getting in the game.
NATALIE: Yes.
DAN: Steve Cisco wants his wife back, the road goes through me.
NATALIE: I love it.
DAN: Tonight Rebecca’s getting an antique abacus from Dang Luck.
NATALIE: Yes!
DAN: What am I, crazy?
NATALIE: No.
DAN: Am I Mr. Crazy Guy?
NATALIE: No.
DAN: I am.
NATALIE: You’re not.
DAN: I’m crazy.
NATALIE: Crazy in love.
DAN: No, just crazy.
Well, at least you admit it, Dan.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Really Good Porn™
NATALIE: I’m talkin’ about really good porn.
JEREMY: Natalie.
NATALIE: Let’s work.
Thank you! Working is what you should have been doing in the first place! Love help me, some people…
DANA: Stop making Jerry Falwell jokes on the air.
CASEY: No.
DANA: Yes.
CASEY: I don’t do Jerry Falwell ‘jokes’.
DANA: The aside, the drop-ins, I’m telling you, stop it.
…
CASEY: What are you afraid of?
DANA: Offending people.
CASEY: Who? Our legions of viewers who take Jerry Falwell seriously? Charo’s got a bigger fanbase.
I actually had to look up who Charo is, which is a little embarrassing for me because it turns out she was a student of Segova — minus one point to my classical guitarist cred, I guess. Charo rose to fame in the late ’60s and ’70s as a frequent guest star on American television as both a musician and a comedian, but had her fame plummet by the end of the ’70s as an explicitly recognized example of celebrity overexposure.
CASEY: No, I — I know I’m alone on this. I know the vast majority of people consider Jerry Falwell a spiritual pillar of great and gentle wisdom. I know that most people consider him a scholarly and tolerant man who would never judge others harshly just because they were different. I know that most people find his calm leadership to be a gentle soothing beacon in a time of great social chaos. His guidance, for instance, on the great purple Teletubby matter was fraught with the kind of theological sophistication that only Jerry Falwell and a cafeteria full of sixth graders could devise. I know I’m going way out on a limb, but I think Jerry Falwell’s a fat-ass.
Oh, Casey — I was with you all the way until you called him a fat-ass. You went off the rails there, come back to the stable.
CASEY: I have a typewriter and I will use it as I see fit.
…
DANA: Not on my show, Casey.
CASEY: Is this it?
DANA: Yes.
CASEY: You’re gonna bench me?
DANA: Absolutely.
CASEY: Say it.
DANA: Do another Falwell joke and you’re suspended for a week.
Alright, well… those things I said about Dana and Casey’s roles in the episode went out the window with this scene. They went from the primarily comic elements of the episode to being dead serious with one another. If this were any other Sorkin show I wouldn’t mind, but once again the strictures of the half-hour comedy format makes for a sense of whiplash for anyone paying attention.
DAN: I want you to know I would kiss you right now, full on the lips, but there are people around and it’s unprofessional. (to the room) Leave, people!
(REBECCA laughs)
Dang, if only he could actually bring about that loophole…
REBECCA: They say the San Francisco Giants are gonna be a good team.
DAN: They will, but not this year.
REBECCA: What about Barry Bonds?
DAN: Unfortunately, the rules prohibit Barry Bonds from batting before and after himself, and he probably can’t play right field and pitch at the same time.
He probably could if he played cricket! Sort of…
REBECCA: I want you to know that —
DAN: It’s okay.
REBECCA: No, I have to tell you that you just —
DAN: Don’t worry about it. We’ll see each other around the building. (beat) I gotta go.
REBECCA: Danny, I wanna thank you —
DAN: Hey, really… it was my pleasure.
Jeez, Dan, if it were really that pleasureful for you, you wouldn’t keep stopping Rebecca from thanking you like that. I’m getting some mixed signals here, man.
DAVE: We’re back from commercial in three, two…
CASEY: That’s all for us…
Wait, what? We go straight from commercial into the outro for the show? That seems like bad planning to me.
DANA: Casey.
CASEY: What?
DANA: I’m sorry.
(CASEY signals DANA with his head to follow him)
DANA: What’re you doing?
CASEY: Going someplace private.
DANA: But what was that thing with your head?
CASEY: Well, I was signaling you.
DANA: Signaling me what?
CASEY: That we should go someplace private.
Come on, Dana, you gotta learn the signs.foreshadowing detected
CASEY: Are you gonna suspend me for a week?
DANA: Oh, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. That was a very big gun to pull out, I’m sorry.
CASEY: I’m sorry for testing your authority, you’re the boss.
Oh, okay — as soon as the plot arc is introduced, it’s over already. For a moment, I thought we’d be seeing this all the way to the season finale.
DANA: I’m sorry I bailed on the show that night.
Wait, what? You’re actually apologizing for that?!
DANA: I know if you’d done it to me, I’d have felt abandoned.
CASEY: Well, I was surprised by it.
DANA: Yeah.
CASEY: It’s not a big deal, I was [surprised by it. Sally did a fine job.]
DANA: [Gordon’s gonna ask me to marry him.]
CASEY: I’m sorry?
Hey, look at that, we got another proper duet! Haven’t seen that since the pilot! We gotta get these two mad at each other more often, it seems…
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Special powers™
Previous instance: Sports Night 104
NATALIE: Gordon’s gonna ask Dana to marry her.
JEREMY: Really…
NATALIE: Yes.
JEREMY: How do you know?
NATALIE: ‘Cause I have special powers, Jeremy.
Okay, no kidding, Jeremy, I wouldn’t be offended if you broke up with her for good.
NATALIE: Are you over it yet?
JEREMY: Yes.
NATALIE: Well, that’s just too bad. You wanna know why? ‘Cause — what?
JEREMY: I’m over it.
Yeah, that caught me off-guard as well, Nat — once again, a plot arc gets resolved very quickly after it started. Granted, I’m glad this fucking thing is over, but that it lasted for such a short time makes me question its presence in the first place. I suppose Mr. Sorkin saw the light about his making Natalie psychotic too late to do anything about it in the first episode? Eh, I’m probably hoping for too much there…
NATALIE: Where’s Dan?
DAN: (from his office) I’m right here.
Cut between “final draft” and episode (no, I’m never letting it go) is Dan drunkenly singing the first two lines from Bruce Springsteen’s “When You’re Alone” from inside his office before revealing himself during the above line. Springsteen’s music at the time was under the purview of Sony Music Entertainment, which is a competitor to the Warner Music Group with which Disney had a licensing deal, so getting the rights to use the song probably couldn’t happen in time. Either that, or Josh Charles couldn’t reliably sing it while sounding drunk, but I don’t know if I buy that.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Bob/duck and weave
DAN: I’m on my feet… bobbin’ ‘n weavin’… breakin’ tackles, nothin’ but open field.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: How ya doin’
Running count: 15
NATALIE: How ya doin’?
DAN: Well, I’ve had a little wine. Somebody wants to make book on whether or not I’ll be havin’ a little more, I would not bet against me.
Aight, I’ll put double-C on your drinking more, how about that?
NATALIE: Casey, she didn’t tell me until just before air time. I didn’t want to tell you before you went on the air.
DAN: Didn’t stop Rebecca.
JEREMY: That was my fault.
DAN: Then you are my sworn enemy.
JEREMY: Dan…
DAN: I love you, man, gimme a hug.
Man, Josh Charles makes a great fake drunk…
DAN: I love you, too, Casey. You’re like my, you know, much much older brother.
For the record: Peter Krause is six years older than Josh Charles. However — and I didn’t note this at the time — in “The Apology”, Dan Rydell was aged up two years: he states that he started college eleven years ago that day, but Josh Charles would have been sixteen at the time. We haven’t yet heard Casey McCall’s exact age, but given he was friends with Dana in college and she’s stated multiple times that she is 33 years old (despite Felicity Huffman’s actual age), it would be fair to expect Casey to be the same age — which happens to match with Peter Krause’s age at the time. This is all the say, that’s at least one too many muches, Dan.
NATALIE: The thing is, Casey…
CASEY: What?
NATALIE: With you, I didn’t hear it.
CASEY: Hear what?
NATALIE: Did you hear it, Dan?
DAN: I didn’t hear it. Did you hear it, Jeremy?
JEREMY: I didn’t hear it.
NATALIE: Nobody’s heard it. Nobody’s heard the bell ring.
CASEY: Yeah.
NATALIE: Yeah.
I have no fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean. Everyone in the scene seems to know what’s being said, though, so I’ll just let the music take me.
CASEY: I’m gonna need a plan.
Oh, boy, I can’t want to see what plan he comes up with.sarcasm detected
So… yeah, not my favorite episode of television, for sure — but that’s strictly only because of my impatience with the half-hour comedy framing. Take that away, and this episode really does have its moments of music, which almost makes its plot shortcomings forgivable. If nothing else, I enjoyed getting to know about cricket a little, which this episode goaded me into doing. As for everything else the plot has to offer… well, I think I’ll reserve judgement until I see the next two episodes. Mr. Sorkin deserves that much.
Once you’re done reading the scoresheet for Anil Kumble’s nearly-unmatched feat, I’d recommend setting yourself up with a subscription to this blog to be among the first to see where we’re goingforeshadowing detected. Coming up next: from Waterloo, with love.
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