Play ball!
Ball four! Take your base!
That's it, Moose! You're gettin' close!
He couldn't find the plate if you nailed it to his ass.
Shut your pie hole, Piney. The kid's gotta learn.
Come straight over the top, Moose! Straight over the top! Come on!
Hot damn. Exley's up.
Back up! Exley's up! Back up!
He got the right prescription in those spectacles?
Don't worry, Ex. See, I told him to throw it
right at your big nappy home-run hittin' head.
So you can bet 100 clams that ball's goin' anywhere but there.
Foul! Foul ball! Foul!
Ball!
Moose! Straight over the top!
Hey, Ex, I heard the Yankees been calling ya.
I'm fine playing here in the Cactus League. It's nice and quiet.
Ball! Leave the cactus alone, son!
I don't know, Ex. The Yanks could use those 60 home runs a year.
Now Jackie Robinson's up there in the bigs, people are sayin' you're gonna be next.
The first black Negro man of colour in the American League.
Shoot, Ex. You'll be famous, man.
I don't want to be no famous man. I just wanna be a man.
Over the top! Over the top!
Fair ball! Home run! Home run!
61.
What do you boys want? We're just playing baseball.
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 wanna let a little nigger play ball!
So we just figure we gotta play with him a little bit some first!
And all you niggers and nigger lovers can go home!
It's Ex we want.
That's what I'm talking about, Moose. Straight over the top with it.
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...
It's a gorgeous day for baseball here in the City of the 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.
Eddie Perez will start it off...
Mulder, it is such a gorgeous day outside.
You ever entertained the idea of trying to find life on this planet?
I've seen the life on this planet. That is exactly why I'm looking elsewhere.
Did you bring enough ice cream to share with the class?
It's not ice cream. It's a Nonfat Tofutti Rice Dreamsicle.
Ugh!
I bet the air in my mouth tastes better than that.
- You sure know how to live it up, Scully. - You're Mr Live It Up.
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 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.
Do you know how many flying-disc reports there were in New Mexico in the 1940s?
I don't care. 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. - I won't sit by as you hurl clichés 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.
Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for Nonfat Tofutti Rice Dreamsicles!
Mulder.
Mulder!
You cheat! I can't believe it. You've been reading about baseball this whole time.
I'm reading the box scores. It's like the Pythagorean theorem for jocks.
It distils all the chaos and action of any game in the history of all games
into one 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. The numbers talk to me. They comfort me.
They tell me even though 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 US government.
You rebel.
- What in the hell took you so long? - I'm sorry, sir. I'm looking for Arthur Dales.
- I'm Arthur Dales. - No, you're not.
- Don't be a wise-ass, son. - No. 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. The same name, different guy.
The other Arthur, he moved to Florida. Lucky bastard.
Our parents weren't big in the imagination department when it came to names.
If it'll help you wrapping your 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 for 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.
Maybe it's you. It's from many years ago. You're standing in Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell. That's me. I was a cop once in Roswell.
You're standing with Negro League legend Josh Exley,
who disappeared during a season in which he hit 60 home runs.
- 61! - 61 home runs in 1948.
'47!
Whatever. I don't care about the baseball so much.
What I care about is this man in the picture who 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 things like government conspiracies,
and alien bounty hunters, and the truth with a capital "T".
- Wait a minute. I like baseball. - You like baseball?
How many home runs did Mickey Mantle hit?
163...
righty, 373 lefty.
536 total.
Now 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...
the, uh... the aliens, the conspiracies,
they would all in their way be answered by the baseball gods.
Yes, sir. That may be true. Your experience in Roswell could be germane to a conspiracy
between men in our government and shapeshifting alien beings.
Don't bore me, son. My brother Arthur started the X-Files,
at 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 "shapeshifting".
Agent Mulder, do you believe that love can make a man shapeshift?
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 shapeshift from a man into something other than a man?
What exactly has your brother told you about me?
If you and your brother have known about this bounty hunter
and plans for colonisation for 50 years, why haven't you told anybody?
- Nobody'd believe me. - I would've.
- You weren't ripe. - Not ripe?
I've been ripe for years.
I am way past ripe. I'm so ripe, I'm rotten!
This cuts to the heart of the mystery of what I've been doing for ten years.
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 fella 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 the right place to start from, isn't it?
Now the first thing you gotta know about baseball is... it keeps you for ever young.
Mr Exley? Mr Exley, my name's Arthur Dales.
I'm an employee of the Roswell Police Department.
- Have I broken a law? - 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.
I've been assigned by my superiors to protect you against certain parties.
I'm the one that need protection from certain parties. Ex, he in bed by eight every night.
I appreciate your concern, sir, but I can protect myself.
I'm not a big sports hero like yourself, and I don't have an opinion on Negroes.
Or Jews, or Communists, or even Canadians and vegetarians.
But I cannot stomach the murder of a man of any persuasion or any colour
being flaunted and solicited in my town. Not on my watch.
So you can be safe with me in a cell or you can be safe with me here on the bus.
Seeing as how this is still America, you're free to choose, sir.
- Officer Dales. You a decent man, ain't you? - I try to be.
Umps would treat us better if you got us eight more uniforms like these to play in.
You could change your name from 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 gotta give it to you. Calling a Negro League team from Roswell the Grays, is pretty clever.
ET steal home.
I didn't make that up.
You want me to believe that Josh Exley, the great ball player, was an alien?
They're all aliens, Agent Mulder. All the great ones.
- Babe Ruth was an alien? - Yeah.
- Joe DiMaggio? - Sure.
- Willie Mays? - 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.
Until they step on the outfield grass.
Like clockwork. Poorboy with my medicine.
Give the kid a tip, will you?
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 ya?
If Ex hits a couple of dingers, that ties the Babe!
That ball's worth nothin'. Ex ain't a major-leaguer, so the record don't count.
- Does too. - Does not.
- Does. - Not.
Perfect day for a ball game.
- There, uh... there was a bee on you. - Must've been a real big one.
Could've ripped your head off.
Hey, Arthur...
Thanks.
Officer Arthur Dales, making the world safe for baseball and Negroes.
Play ball!
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?
My name is Arthur Dales. I'm with the Roswell Police Department.
I'm doing a background check on a gentleman from your area: Josh Exley.
You want information on a Josh Exley?
Yeah. The name rings a bell. Yeah. I got a Josh Exley.
A six-year-old coloured boy disappeared, oh, maybe five years ago.
Have you got a read on this Josh Exley's whereabouts?
Six years old?
- You want me to run some chemical tests? - Hold on.
That would make him 11 now? No, that can't... can't be the one.
I... I love my job.
- Is that all you have? Are you certain? - Certain as the sunrise.
I'm sorry, son.
Where are you 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. Gonna hit numero 6-0?
- There ain't no scouts here today. - Sure there are. Look.
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. - The Yankee scouts are in attendance today.
They won't relish the idea of him being in the majors after such a piss-poor inning as this.
Strike two!
Two balls, two strikes now!
Hey, Ex... Why'd 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 kid who disappeared from Macon, Georgia,
the same time you showed up in Roswell.
I ain't been to Macon.
When you got beaned, you said you were from Macon.
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
cos those sportswriters'd 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.
Don't go talking about my race. You know nothing.
I know that liars come in all colours.
You got a secret. Famous or not, I'm gonna find out what it is.
While you're out chasing secrets, you make sure you chasing the right ones.
Ex?
Oh... Oh, thank you.
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?
That's really you under there, Ex?
- Ow! - I ain't under anything, Arthur.
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. That's even weirder. - Bus leaves in five... Ooh.
So why did you... leave your family in, uh... in Georgia?
- My people guard their privacy zealously. - I can understand that.
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? - You know what happened.
You fell in love with an Earth woman.
- What? - No.
- I saw a baseball game. - Oh...
There's something you gotta 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.
But I tell you, when I saw that baseball game being played,
this laughter just... just rolls up out of me.
Know the sound the ball makes when it hits the bat? It was like music to me.
The smell of the grass, the leather mitt.
The 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... like a rose.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a rose. Yeah. See? You get it, Arthur. You're a fan.
Well, I tell you, from that moment on... I just couldn't fix myself to go home.
Come up here, Ex. Let's hear that beautiful voice.
Õ..together in that land
õ..We'll all be together in that land
- õ Where I'm bound - Õ Oh, Lord!
Õ We'll all be together in that land
õ We'll all be together in that land
õ We'll all be together...
Gray Bus Lines. You can go home again.
A free-spirited alien fell in love with baseball
and ran away from the other non-fun-having aliens
and made himself black to prevent him getting to the majors
where his secret might be discovered by press and public. You're also implying...
You certainly have a knack for turning chicken salad into chicken spit.
You're also implying that this 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 gave you some wood, I asked 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.
So is Ex a man who is metaphorically an alien?
An alien who is 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 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've noticed that, over 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 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 the FBI and the Communicable Disease Center.
Oh, no, Ted, you didn't. Nobody was supposed to know.
- Can you get the glove back to me? - Sure. As soon as I finish up here.
I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Josh.
I know who you are. Only the best ball player west of the Bronx.
Thank you. Arthur sent me here to explain the substance. That's my mitt it ruined.
Where is this stuff from?
Mars.
Actually just to the left of Mars.
What do you think you're doing?!
Ex.
A fella at the precinct is willing to swear on his life
that you killed a man this afternoon.
Now I'm not sure what's going on here. But I... I do know that you're no murderer.
You're gonna 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 gotta 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?
Next thing you're gonna tell me is I owe it to the kids to break the home-run record.
Or I owe it to the black folks to make it to the majors.
Or I should 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.
- Know the big thing that separates us? - What's that?
We got rhythm.
- I better go. - Yeah.
Hey, will you do me a favour?
Will you tell people what I did on the field?
- Will you tell your kids how I played? - 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 but, believe me, you do not.
You don't know what I know. And you don't know what I don't know.
This is no minor-league New Mexico cowboy cop crap.
If I told you what was really going on, you'd stare at me in wild-eyed wonder
and pee your pants like a baby.
Tell me what I wanna 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!
A witness puts him at the murder scene.
Now I know they look alike, but unless he's got a guy running around looks identical,
he is a murderer, you could be an accomplice,
and the two of you are 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 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 honour.
This is my true face.
So be it.
No! Stop!
Ex!
No! Let me be! Let me be!
Arthur, get off of 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.
Õ Come and go with me to that land
õ Come and go with me to that land
õ Where I'm bound
õ I got a brother in that land
õ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound
õ I got a brother in that land
õ 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? - 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.
Õ I got a sister in that
õ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound
õ I got a sister...
Is 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.
It's not a bad piece of ash, huh?
The bat. I'm talking about the bat.
Don't strangle it. You wanna shake hands with it. Hello, Mr Bat.
It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. No, Miss Scully. The pleasure's all mine.
OK, now we wanna... we wanna go hips before hands, OK?
We wanna stride forward and turn. That's what we're thinking.
- So we go hips... before hands. All right? - OK.
One more time. Hips before hands.
- All right? What is it? - Hips before hands.
We're gonna keep our eye on the ball and then we're just gonna make contact.
We're not gonna think. We're just gonna let it fly, Scullly, OK?
- Ready? - I'm in the middle.
All right, fire away, Poorboy.
Ooh!
That's good. What you may find, as you're concentrating on hitting that little ball...
the rest of the world fades away. 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 your crackpot, albeit brilliant, partner.
Getting to the heart of a global conspiracy.
Your obscenely overdue triple-X bill.
Oh, I'm sorry, Scully. Those last two problems are mine, not yours.
Shut up, Mulder. I'm playing baseball.
Õ Where I'm bound, where I'm bound
õ Come and go with me to that land
õ Where I'm bound
Yasmin Rammohan
I made this!