Play ball!
Ball four!
Take your base!
That's it, Moose! You're getting close now!
Bring it, son!
Moose couldn't find the plate if you nailed it to his ass.
Shut your pie hole, Piney.
Kid's got to learn.
Come straight over the top, Moose.
Straight over the top.
Come on!
Ah, damn.
Exley's up.
Back up!
Exley's up! Back up!
You sure your boy got the right prescription
in those spectacles?
Ah, don't worry, Ex.
See, I told him to throw it right at
your big, nappy, home-run-hitting head.
So you can bet a hundred clams that ball's
going anywhere but there.
Foul! Foul ball! Foul!
Foul ball!
Ball!
Moose!
Straight over the top.
Over the top. Over the top!
Hey, Ex, I heard the Yankees have been calling you.
I'm fine playing here in the Cactus League.
It's nice and quiet.
Ball!
Leave the cactus alone, son!
Gee, I don't know, Ex.
Yanks could use those 60 home runs a year.
Well, now that, uh, Jackie Robinson's up there in the bigs,
people are saying you're going to be next.
The first black Negro man of color
in the American League.
Shoot, Ex, you'll be famous, man.
I don't want to be no famous man.
Just want to be a man.
Over the top! Over the top!
Over the top!
Fair ball!
Home run! Home run!
Sixty-one.
I told you he could do it.
Sixty-one!
What do you boys want?
We're just playing a baseball game here.
We got no beef with you, sir.
It's that black Babe Ruth hiding behind you.
Josh Exley.
That's all we come for.
Well, you can't have him.
We heard the Yankees want to let a nigger play ball,
so we just figure we're going to play with him
a little bit some first.
Now, all you niggers and nigger-lovers,
you can go home!
It's Ex we want.
That's what I'm talking about, Moose-- straight over the top.
Come on, straight over the top with it.
Here, baby, come on now, right over the top.
Come on, get the guns. Get the guns.
You boys ain't so tough without your shotguns, are you, fellas?
You ain't nothing but a coward.
Hiding behind your mama's bedsheet.
Let's see your face.
Holy mother of...
It's a gorgeous day for baseball
here in the City of Angels,
and I'm told it's a gorgeous day
all over our republic today--
from Bangor to Bellflower, from Amarillo to Anchorage.
The sun is shining, and it's a perfect day to play baseball...
Morning.
Eddie Perez will start it off.
Right-hand batter...
Mulder, it is such a gorgeous day outside.
Have you ever entertained the idea
of trying to find life on this planet?
I have seen the life on this planet, Scully,
and that is exactly why I'm looking elsewhere.
Did you bring enough ice cream to share
with the rest of the class?
It's not ice cream.
It's a nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicle.
Ugh. Bet the air in my mouth tastes better than that.
You sure know how to live it up, Scully.
Oh, you're Mr. Live-It-Up.
Mulder, you're really
Mr. "Squeeze every last drop out of this sweet life," aren't you?
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?
Looking for anomalies, Scully.
Do you know how many so-called "flying disc" reports
there were in New Mexico in the 1940s?
I don't care.
Mulder, this is a needle in a haystack.
These poor souls have been dead for 50 years.
Let them rest in peace. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Well, I won't sit idly by as you hurl cliches at me.
Preparation is the father of inspiration.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.
I scream, you scream, we all scream
for nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicles.
No...!
Mulder...
Mulder!
You cheat!
I can't believe that you've been reading
about baseball this whole time.
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 tiny, perfect, rectangular sequence of numbers.
I can look at this box,
and I can recreate exactly what happened
on some sunny summer day back in 1947.
It's like the numbers talk to me, they comfort me.
They tell me that even though lots of things can change,
some things do remain the same. It's...
Boring.
Mulder, can I ask you a personal question?
Of course not.
Did your mother ever tell you to go outside and play?
Is that Arthur Dales?
Mulder?
You just defaced property of the U.S. Government.
...it is gone!
You rebel.
What in hell took you so long?
I'm-I'm sorry, sir.
I'm-I'm looking for Arthur Dales.
I'm Arthur Dales.
No, you're not.
Don't be a wiseass, son.
No, I-I'm sorry, sir, I know Arthur Dales,
and you're not Arthur Dales.
Arthur Dales is my brother.
My name also happens to be Arthur Dales.
It's the same name, different guy.
The other Arthur, he moved to Florida,
the lucky bastard.
Our parents weren't exactly big
in the imagination department when it came to names.
If it would help you wrapping your little head
around this stupefying mystery, Agent Mulder,
we had a sister named Arthur, too,
and a goldfish.
How do you know my name?
My brother told me all about you.
He said you were the biggest jackass
in the Bureau since he retired.
Yeah, we're big fans.
Sometimes we'd stay awake hours at night
just talking about you.
Just fascinating.
Now, unless you're hiding some Chinese food,
let's call it a day.
Mr. Dales, I have a, uh...
I have a photo here of your brother.
M-Maybe it's you.
It's from many years ago,
and you're standing in Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell. That's me.
I was a cop once in Roswell.
Okay, and you're standing with Negro League legend Josh Exley,
who disappeared without a trace
during a season in which he reportedly
hit 60 home runs.
Sixty-one.
61 home runs in 1948.
Forty-seven.
'47, whatever.
I don't really care about the baseball so much, sir.
What I care about is this man in the picture with you
I believe to be an alien bounty hunter.
Of course you don't care about the baseball, Mr. Mulder.
You only bothered my brother about the important things,
like government conspiracies and alien bounty hunters
and the truth with a capital "T."
Wait a minute. I like baseball.
You like baseball, huh? Yeah.
How many home runs did Mickey Mantle hit?
A hundred and sixty-three.
Righty. 373 lefty. 536 total.
What you fail to understand
in your joyless myopia
is that baseball is the key to life--
the Rosetta stone, if you will.
If you just understood baseball better,
all your other questions, your-your...
the, uh... the aliens, the conspiracies--
they would all, in their way,
be answered by the baseball gods.
Yes, sir, that may be true.
I'm thinking that your experience in Roswell
could be germane to a conspiracy between men in our government
and these shape-shifting alien beings.
Oh, don't bore me, son.
My brother Arthur started the X Files
with the Federal Bureau of Obfuscation
before you were born.
He was working for the FBI hunting for aliens
when you were watching My Best Friend's Martians.
You say "shape-shifting."
Agent Mulder,
do you believe that love can make a man shape-shift?
I guess... women change men all the time.
I'm not talking about women.
I'm talking about love, passion.
Like the passion you have for proving
extraterrestrial life.
Do you believe that that passion
can change your very nature?
Can make you shape-shift from a man into something
other than a man?
What exactly has your brother told you about me?
Mr. Dales, if you and your brother
have really known about this bounty hunter
and plans for colonization for the last 50 years,
why the hell wouldn't you have told anybody?
Nobody'd believe me.
Well, I would have believed you.
You weren't... ripe.
Not ripe?
I have been ripe for years.
I am way past ripe.
I'm so ripe I'm rotten.
This cuts to the very heart of the mystery
of what I've been doing with my life for the past ten years.
Oh, the heart of the mystery, the heart of the mystery.
Ah, there you are.
Mr. Mulder,
maybe you'd better start paying a little less attention
to the heart of the mystery
and a little more attention to the mystery of the heart.
You got a dime?
What is this?
This little fellow goes by the name of Pete Rosebud.
If you keep pumping coffee money into him,
he'll tell you a story about baseball and aliens
and bounty hunters.
You're making me feel like a child.
Perfect.
That's exactly the right place to start from then, isn't it?
Now, the first thing you got to know about baseball is...
it keeps you forever young.
Mr. Exley?
Mr. Exley, my name's Arthur Dales.
I'm an employee of the Roswell Police Department.
Have I broken a law, sir?
You stole.
Second base in the third inning.
I'm a witness.
Officer, I seen Ex steal...
at least 50 bases this year.
No, sir, you haven't broken any laws,
not that I'm aware of.
Um, I've been assigned by my superiors
to protect you against certain parties.
I'm the one need protection from certain parties.
Ex here-- he in bed by 8:00 every night.
I appreciate your concern, sir,
but I can protect myself.
Mr. Exley, I'm not a big sports hero like yourself, sir,
and I really don't have an opinion on Negroes,
or Jews or Communists
or even Canadians and vegetarians, for that matter,
but I cannot stomach the murder of a man
of any persuasion or any color
being flaunted and solicited in my town-- not on my watch.
So you can be safe with me in a cell down at the precinct,
or you can be safe with me here on the bus.
Seeing as how this is still America,
you're free to choose, sir.
Vous etes sans coeur.
Vous etes sans coeur, mademoiselle.
Vous etes sans coeur... coeur...
Hey, Officer Dales,
you're a decent man, ain't you?
I try to be.
Well, the fellas feel like the umps would treat us better
if you got us eight more uniforms like these to play in.
Yeah.
You could change your name from the Roswell Grays
to the Roswell Black and Blues.
What's the matter, Arthur?
You look like you ain't never seen a black man before.
I've got to give it to you, Arthur.
Calling a Negro League team from Roswell the Grays
is pretty clever.
E.T. steal home. E.T. steal home.
I didn't make that up.
You seriously want me to believe that Josh Exley,
maybe one of the greatest ballplayers
of all times, was an alien?
They're all aliens, Agent Mulder--
all the great ones.
Babe Ruth was an alien?
Yeah.
Joe DiMaggio?
Sure.
Willie Mays?
Well, obviously.
Mantle? Koufax? Gibson?
Bob or Kirk?
See, none of the great ones fit in--
not in this world, not in any other world.
They're all aliens, Mulder,
till they step between the white chalk lines--
till they step on the outfield grass.
Like clockwork.
Poorboy with my medicine.
Give the kid a tip, will ya?
So I assume you're speaking metaphorically?
Speaking metaphorically,
is for young men like you, Agent MacGyver.
I don't have time for that.
I only have time to speak the truth.
You're a regular Rockefeller, ain't you?
If Ex hits a couple of dingers, that'll be 60.
That ties the Babe.
Aw, that ball's worth nothing.
Ex ain't a major leaguer, so the record don't count.
Does, too.
Does not.
Does, too. Does not.
Does, too.
Does not.
Does. Not.
Perfect day for a ball game.
There, uh... there was a bee on you.
Must have been a real big one.
Could have ripped your head off.
Hey, Arthur.
Thanks.
Officer Arthur Dales,
making the world safe for baseball and Negroes.
Play ball!
Time! Time!
Do you know your name, son?
Josh, do you know where you are?
Josh, man, wake up.
Do you know where you're from?
Macon...
Macon, Georgia.
Macon Police Department.
Can I help you?
Yeah, my name is Arthur Dales.
I'm with the Roswell Police Department.
I'm doing a background check on a gentleman
I believe is from your area.
His name is Josh Exley.
You want information on a Josh Exley?
Yeah, name rings a bell.
Yeah, I got a Josh Exley.
A six-year-old colored boy disappeared,
oh, maybe five years ago.
Now, do you got a read
on this Josh Exley's whereabouts?
Six years old?
You wanted to see me about
running some chemical tests, Arthur?
Yeah. Hold on.
That would make him 11 now?
No, that can't... can't be the one.
I love my job.
And is that all you have?
Are you certain?
Certain as the sunrise.
I'm sorry, son.
Did you say where you were calling from?
Roswell... Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell.
Hey. Morning, Poorboy.
Morning, Ex. How's the melon?
My melon's fine.
That boy throws like a lady.
I hear the Yankee scouts are here today.
Going to hit numero 60?
Ain't no scouts here today.
Sure there are. Look.
Right over there.
I'll be damned.
Hey, kids.
So how's it going?
Ex is stinking up the diamond.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Well, anybody can have a bad day.
Yeah, but the Yankee scouts
are in attendance today.
I don't think they'll relish the idea
of him being in the majors
after such a piss-poor outing as this.
Strike two!
Two balls, two strikes now.
Ex...
why did you tank that game today?
I won that game today.
You tanked the game today.
You want me to tell you why?
Because your name's not Josh Exley.
Josh Exley is a six-year-old kid
who disappeared from Macon, Georgia,
about the same time that you showed up in Roswell.
I ain't never been to Macon.
When you got beaned, you said you were from Macon.
Well, I also spoke tongues like I did
when I was a little boy in church.
I was joking, Arthur. Relax.
I'm relaxed.
You're hiding something.
That's why you don't dare get into the major leagues,
'cause the sports writers and everybody
would be digging around,
and they'd find out what it is, right?
So you tanked the game in front of those scouts today.
Disappointing those kids... disappointing your teammates...
disappointing your race...
Look here, don't go talking about my race.
You don't know nothing about my race.
I know that liars come in all colors.
You got a secret.
Famous or not, I'm going to find out what it is.
While you're out chasing secrets,
you make sure you're chasing the right ones.
Ex?
Oh, thank you.
Oh!
This is ridiculous.
You're supposed to be a big, bad policeman.
Now, hold up, Arthur.
Now, before you go fainting again, listen to me.
It's me, Arthur.
It's Ex.
This is an interesting dream.
Wake up.
Come on, Artie.
Man, you ain't dreaming.
This is what I really look like.
This is the real me.
Ex?
It's really you under there, Ex?
Ow!
I ain't "under" anything, Arthur,
and I'm trying not to be insulted
by your reaction to my true face.
Look, would it be easier if I looked like this?
Would this be easier for you to handle?
No. Somehow, that's even weirder.
Bus leaves in five... Ooh.
So why did you, uh,
leave your family in, uh... in Georgia?
My people guard their privacy zealously.
I can understand that.
They don't... they don't like for us
to intermingle with your people.
Their philosophy is
we stick to ourselves; you stick to yourselves--
everybody's happy.
So what happened?
Well, you know what happened.
You fell in love with an Earth woman.
No.
I saw a baseball game.
Oh. See, there's something
you got to understand about my race.
We don't have a word for laughter.
We don't laugh.
I don't know if you noticed
in between all that fainting you was doing,
but we have very tiny mouths, so no smiling even.
I tell you, when I saw that baseball game being played,
this laughter just...
it just rose up out of me.
You know, the sound the ball makes
when it hits the bat?
Yeah.
It was like music to me.
You know, the smell of the grass, leather mitt--
first unnecessary thing I ever done in my life,
and I fell in love.
I didn't know the unnecessary could feel so good.
You know, the game was meaningless,
but it seemed to mean everything to me.
It was useless, but perfect.
Yeah, like, uh... like a rose.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a rose.
See? You get it, Arthur.
You're a fan. Uh-huh.
I tell you, from that moment on,
I just couldn't fix myself to go home.
Come on up here, Ex.
Let's hear that beautiful voice
you got on you.
♪ We'll all be together in that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound ♪
♪ Oh, Lord ♪
♪ We'll all be together in that land ♪
♪ We'll all be together... ♪
Gray Bus Lines. You can go home again.
Let me get this straight--
a free-spirited alien fell in love with baseball
and ran away from the other non-fun-having aliens
and made himself black, because that would prevent him
from getting to the majors where his unspeakable secret
might be discovered by an intrusive press and public,
and you're also implying that...
You certainly have a knack
for turning chicken salad into chicken spit.
You're also implying that this baseball-playing alien
has something to do with the famous Roswell UFO crash
of July '47, aren't you?
You're just dying to connect the dots,
aren't you, son?
Look, I give you some wood,
I ask you for a cabinet.
You build me a cathedral.
I don't want a cathedral.
I like where I live.
I just want a place to put my TV.
Understand my drift?
Drift it is, sir.
Trust the tale, Agent MacGyver,
not the teller.
That which fascinates us
is by definition true.
Speaking metaphorically, of course.
Okay, so was Ex a man who was metaphorically an alien
or an alien who was metaphorically a man
or a something in between
that was literally an alien-human hybrid?
It's official.
I am a horse's ass.
What is it to be a human, Fox?
Is it to have the chemistry of a man?
In the universal scheme of things,
a dog's chemistry is nearly identical to that of a man.
But is a dog like a man?
I have noticed that over the course of time,
a man and his dog will start to look like one another.
To be a man is to have the heart of a man.
Integrity, decency, sympathy--
these are the things that make a man a man,
and Ex had them all--
had them all, more than you or I.
Dales.
Ted?
Calm down. What is it?
This goo on the glove you gave me-- is this a joke?
Why?
It's not like
any chemical compound I've ever seen.
It's from a life-form which doesn't seem to be carbon-based,
which, by the way, is impossible.
This is way out of my league.
I called to the FBI
and the Communicable Disease Center in Washington...
Washington? Oh, no, Ted, you didn't.
Nobody was supposed to know about this.
Can you... can you get the glove back to me?
Sure, soon as I finish up here.
I didn't mean to startle you.
I'm Josh.
Oh, I know who you are.
Only the best damn ballplayer west of the Bronx.
Oh, thank you, sir.
Arthur sent me down here to explain this substance.
That's my mitt
it ruined.
Where is this stuff from?
Where did you get it?
Mars.
Actually, just to the left of Mars.
What do you think you're doing?!
Ex?
Ex, there's this fella down at the precinct
who's willing to swear on his life
that you killed a man this afternoon.
Now, I'm not sure what's...
what's going on here,
but I... I do know that you're no murderer.
You're going to have to get out of town, Ex.
Life ain't like baseball, is it?
No.
No, it's not.
I had a talk with my relative.
A good talk.
He made me understand reason, Arthur.
Family's more important than a game.
So... I got to go home.
You still consider them to be your family?
Of course I do.
Who you think my family is?
I don't know.
Your team?
Don't get cornball on me, man.
Next thing, you're going to be telling me
is I owe it to all the little kids to break
the home-run record, or I owe it to the black folks,
who think I'm one of them, to make it to the majors,
or I should just keep playing
out of some meaningless human concept of pride or loyalty.
I don't know, Ex.
We don't think like that, man.
We may be able to look like y'all, but we ain't y'all.
You know the big thing that separates us from you?
What's that?
We got rhythm.
I better go.
Yeah.
Hey, you do me a favor?
Will you tell people what I did on the field?
Will you tell your kids how I played the game?
You know I will, Ex.
Hey, man, uh...
one more thing.
What?
You got a pretty good arm on you, boy.
You may think you know the man, Dales,
but believe me, you do not know the man.
You don't know what I know,
and you don't know what I don't know.
This is no minor-league, Mexico cowboy cop crap.
If I told you what was really going on,
you'd just stare at me in wild-eyed wonder
and pee your pants like a baby.
Now, tell me what I want to know.
Where's Exley?
I told you, he told me he was going home.
Play ball!
You sure your boy got
the right prescription in those spectacles?
Home run!
I got a witness puts him at the murder scene.
Now, I know they have a tendency to look alike,
but unless he's got a guy
running around town looks identical to him,
he is a murderer, you could be an accomplice,
and the two of you fast sliding down a giant razor blade
into a big old glass of lemonade.
But you hand him over...
you can wear your big hat
and that pretty badge as long as you want.
Are we finished?
No, Mr. Dales...
you're finished.
"Home."
God!
Come on.
It's over.
I know.
I warned you. You didn't listen.
Now you die.
It's the right thing to do.
What do you know of the right thing to do?
You, who would risk exposing the entire project for a game.
A game.
I hit a home run tonight.
A home run?
Number 61.
I set a record.
Show me your true face so you can die with dignity.
As your executioner,
I show you my true face before I kill you.
Show me your true face,
or you will die without honor.
This is my true face.
So be it.
No! Stop!
Ex!
No, let me be.
Let me be!
Get off me.
Our blood is like acid to you people.
Arthur, get away.
Don't touch it.
It's just blood, Ex. Look.
It's just blood.
Wow.
♪ Come and go with me to that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound ♪
♪ I got a brother in that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound ♪
♪ I got a brother in that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound... ♪
So, uh...
I get this message marked "urgent"
on my answering service from one Fox Mantle,
telling me to come down to the park
for a very special,
very early or very late birthday present.
And, Mulder...
I don't see any nicely wrapped presents lying around,
so what gives?
You've never hit a baseball, have you, 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.
Get over here, Scully.
♪ I got a sister in that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound ♪
♪ I got a sister in that land... ♪
This my birthday present, Mulder?
You shouldn't have.
This ain't cheap.
I'm paying that kid ten bucks an hour
to shag balls.
Hey, it's not a bad piece of ash, huh?
The bat-- talking about the bat.
Now, don't strangle it.
You just want to shake hands with it.
"Hello, Mr. Bat. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Oh, no, no, Ms. Scully.
The pleasure's all mine."
Okay, now, we want to...
we want to go hips before hands, okay?
We want to stride forward and turn.
That's all we're thinking about.
So, we go hips... before hands, all right?
Okay. Hips...
One more time.
Hips... before hands, all right?
Yeah. What is it?
Hips before hands.
Right. We're going to wait on the pitch.
We're going to keep our eye on the ball.
Okay. Then we're just going to make contact.
We're not going to think.
We're just going to let it fly, Scully, okay?
Mm-hmm.
Ready?
I'm in the middle.
All right, fire away, Poorboy.
Ooh! That's good.
All right, what you may find
is you concentrate on hitting that little ball...
the rest of the world just fades away--
all your everyday, nagging concerns.
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.
Getting into the heart
of a global conspiracy.
Your obscenely overdue triple-X bill.
Oh, I-I'm sorry, Scully.
Those last two problems are mine, not yours.
Shut up, Mulder.
I'm playing baseball.
Ooh!
♪ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound ♪
♪ Come and go with me to that land ♪
♪ Where I'm bound. ♪