Star Trek’s Most Despicable Villain Shaped Deep Space Nine’s Best Character

A previous episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Evolution”) introduced the idea that the 24th century still had some people who loved classic baseball games from ancient Earth. This included astrophysicist Paul Stubbs, who bonded with Wesley Crusher over their knowledge of baseball (Stubbs liked to play entire vintage games in his mind, and Wesley learned to play baseball from his father). Arguably, though, the importance of baseball in the context of the show’s lore wasn’t fully established until the Kivas Fajo episode “The Most Toys.”

How does that track? Though baseball had previously been mentioned earlier in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode “Evolution” highly implies that only weird nostalgia hounds like Wesley’s father Jack Crusher and eccentric geniuses like Stubbs still care about baseball. Kivas Fajo, however, is someone who collects the rarest and most valuable items in the universe so he can show them off to other collectors. Fajo’s penchant for bragging about his collection is made clear when he tries to demonstrate Data’s abilities to his competitor Palor Toff and the android engages in a bit of civil disobedience by refusing to move or say anything.

Sure, you say, but how does all this Star Trek baseball info connect Kivas Fajo to Deep Space Nine character Captain Sisko? Despite all those nice speeches from characters like Captain Picard about how there is no money in the future, we have plenty of evidence (especially from the Ferengi Quark) that capitalism, including supply and demand, is in full swing in the 24th century.

If someone as knowledgeable about the market and the needs of other collectors as Kivas Fajo believes a vintage baseball card to be so valuable, it would only make sense that others in the galaxy would do their best to make some money on what was once considered the great American pastime. 

Because of this, it makes further sense that different forms of baseball (holographic recordings, memorabilia, and even teams of modern players) would be common enough to inspire Captain Sisko’s love of baseball. In-universe, nobody seems to enjoy the game better: Sisko uses baseball to initially bond with the Prophets, and he later prominently displays a baseball in his office in various eps of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He doesn’t just collect memorabilia like Kivas Fajo, and we see his clear love of the game when he ends up leading his crew to an ill-fated baseball game against an old Starfleet Academy Vulcan rival.

Obviously, the idea that Captain Sisko owes his love of baseball to the earlier TNG episode with Kivas Fajo isn’t exactly something we could definitively prove. However, it’s worth noting that in earlier seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show largely avoided featuring real sports, instead showing how characters like Riker actually enjoy futuristic sports such as Parrises Squares and Ambo-jitsu. The introduction of Kivas Fajo and his extensive collection helped normalize baseball as a going concern in the 24th century, all of which paved the way for Benjamin Sisko to be a bona fide baseball superfan throughout Deep Space Nine.