Pitch
There are probably cases to be made for why any month is the best month (except maybe February), but I’ve always had a particular fondness for May, and it’s for one very TV-specific reason: upfronts. Every year in mid-May, television networks put on presentations to promote their new and returning shows. Tracking the renewal/cancellation/pickup notices has always been like my TV nerd version of the NFL/NHL/MLB draft, long before I got it into my head to break into the biz. (Does that analogy work? Everything I know about sports comes from TV and movies.) But it’s always a little bittersweet. On the one hand, I love watching the trailers for all of the upcoming series and finding out which of my favourites will be back in the fall. On the other hand, every year I lose at least one show I love – usually way before its time. This year I’m mourning two series: FOX’s Pitch and ABC’s The Catch. (It would have been three, but in a rare instance of fan outcry actually making a difference, NBC announced its plan to bring back Timeless just three days after cancelling it.)
I recommend both series, but this post is going to focus on Pitch. You might be asking yourself why I’d recommend a series when it’s just been cancelled, but hey, this is my blog and I can post about whatever the heck I like. Plus, a lot of great television gets prematurely cancelled, and it would be unfair to rule shows out just because they only lasted a season or two. In Pitch's case, we only got a 10-episode peek into the show's rich and diverse world, and to commemorate all of the stories that will go untold, I'm taking the time to write this. And maybe it'll inspire some of you to find it now.
Pitch was one of two series that premiered last September created by Dan Fogelman. (The other was This Is Us, which had a hugely successful first season and received an early renewal – for seasons 2 and 3 – back in January.) This isn’t the first time Fogelman, who wrote the screenplays for Tangled and Crazy, Stupid, Love, has had a show axed before its time. He also created Galavant, a brilliant musical comedy starring Joshua Sasse and Timothy Omundson that never found a big enough audience and was cancelled after just 18 episodes. (Full review coming soon!)
Pitch follows Ginny Baker (an outstanding Kylie Bunbury) as she navigates the ups and downs of being the first female pitcher in the major leagues. She’s young – but not naïve. She knows there’s no shortage of people waiting for her to slip up, to prove that girls shouldn’t play (pro) ball. The first half of the season mainly focuses on Ginny dealing with her sudden fame and the stress and feeling of responsibility that come with it, as well as her efforts to fit in with the team. In the pilot, the question is raised: did she really earn her place, or was she called up as a publicity stunt? When she freezes up during her first ever start with the San Diego Padres, it seems like that’s the answer. But she didn’t work this hard, sacrificing a regular adolescence and her relationship with her mother, to give up after one game. And when she makes a comeback in her second game, to a stadium full of cheering fans, I got seriously choked up. You couldn’t pay me enough to take up a sport, but damn if I don’t love a good sports drama. Watching the underdogs overcome the odds and win the big game always gets me. Watching a fierce, smart, spirited young women earn that win? Well that got me good.
I also loved watching her relationships with her teammates unfold. They smartly gave her an immediate ally in Blip (Mo McRae), with whom Ginny has a great brother-sister dynamic. He had played with Ginny in the minors and knows that she’s the real deal. He knows player-Ginny better than anyone and is always ready to advocate on her behalf, but he doesn’t always understand the full weight of what woman-Ginny has to deal with. The team’s captain, catcher Mike Lawson (a bearded, beefy Mark-Paul Gosselaar – all gruff charm and seriously man-sexy), is initially sceptical and dismissive of Ginny, but quickly becomes her mentor and fiercest supporter. It is really fun to watch Ginny develop a genuine friendship with the guy who was once her childhood hero – seeing him knocked off that pedestal on more than one occasion, and exploring the deeper bond that grows between them because of it. And it doesn’t hurt that Bunbury and Gosselaar have some seriously off-the-charts chemistry. The rest of the team didn’t have the chance to be as fully developed, but there are some fun characters there – I particularly enjoy Omar and Sonny.
It takes a few episodes (and a few bruises in the name of team loyalty), but eventually her teammates come to respect her as a player and a person. Episode 7 features a slut-shaming storyline that ends with the guys coming to Ginny’s defence by taking off their clothes. It’s both an important statement – women shouldn’t feel any extra shame about their bodies; they shouldn’t have to be “smarter than that” – and a sweet show of support from the guys.
While Ginny’s world is pretty male-dominated, she does have a couple of kickass women in her corner. Her agent, Amelia Slater (Ali Larter), doesn’t take shit from anybody. A workaholic, her number one priority is always Ginny. Even if Ginny doesn't always appreciate her. Blip’s wife Evelyn (Meagan Holder) is much warmer but no less tough. She’s given up a lot to support her husband in his career, and while she happily made those sacrifices because she loves him, she isn’t willing to put her own dreams on hold forever. She also loves and supports Ginny, but isn’t afraid to tell her when her head’s up her ass.
Ginny understandably draws a lot of attention from sports commentators, and I liked that the show made sure to include a female perspective – women reporters ready to cheer Ginny on, while also demanding she live up to the feminist symbol the sports world has turned her into. Later in the season, the show shifts focus a bit, bringing in more relationship drama, but it never forgets that it has smart things to say about sexism and equality, the clubhouse standing in for any “old boys club” a woman has had to fight her way into. (And yet Ginny is never just a symbol. She is a complex character with motivations that go beyond breaking down barriers. Sometimes she just wants to play the game she loves. And sometimes she wants to give it all up and be normal.) A lot of people wrote Pitch off because it was about baseball, but it really is about so much more than that. Come for the stellar cast, stay for the excellent writing. And with so few episodes it’s a quick watch. Well worth it!
