Problem was, where else could they go? Having them win would be not only ridiculous but really cheesy as an ending, and having them get nothing at all is hardly an ending at all. The ending isn't great, but out of a holodeck episode where the jeopardy is a game of baseball, probably the best we could hope for. The signed ball was self indulgent though, I'd cut that.
You do make some good points. It's win or lose and it's a lighhearted episode. The Niners losing in a squeaker would have been nearly as ridiculous as their winning, so that wouldn't work either. We do learn that Vulcans 1) can make very poor winners, and 1a) are definitely capable of bad sportsmanship. It makes Vulcans a little more accessible in that sense, I'll give it that. I mean it's good to see them characterized with some low-level petty foibles for a change. They should be unemotional in response and logical, not paragons. Plus I did like Odo as an ump.
Although now I have to go back and check...did Sisko and the Niners ever at least congratulate Solok's team? You should at least do that as well, when you lose--need to be gracious from both ends. Ah I just recalled something about my reaction at the time I saw this--I remember that I did think the Niners were, to some degree, poor sports for using their celebration to devalue the Logicians' victory. There's more than one way of being a poor sport. This, though, is characterization and I can't really call it part of the ending let-down. Why should the DS9 staff be any more paragons than the Logicians?
Garak on the Niners would surely have made the ep more overall fun, too.
I had a thought of what this needed, maybe--an outside, possibly alien element, but one that wasn't TOO serious. Remember the photonic race that intruded on Tom Paris' Captain Proton holoprogram one time? Same idea, an unknown that spices things up. This may sound a little counterintuitive, given its original deadly seriousness, but how about the return of the anger/rage/hate-feeding entity from Day of the Dove? Part of the premise and even the funny would be that, in the end, a baseball game was as good for a meal for it as Kirk's and Kang's crews slicing each other up. In an homage, Sisko and Solok (not laughing, wouldn't go that far with a Vulcan) would mock the entity as Odo says "you're outta here!"
Also, the fact that one team is composed of Vulcans could add a slight level of seriousness to that idea, as disengaging the emotional cadmium rods, so to speak, on them, might be on the dangerous side.
Well all that didn't happen. But maybe something could have been better after all. I'm not a screenwriter though, just a Trekkie.
