The Losing Edge

"The Losing Edge" is the fifth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 130th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 6, 2005.

In the episode, the boys try to lose their baseball games on purpose so they can enjoy the summer, instead of dealing with baseball. Meanwhile, Randy trains to fight the other fathers at the games.

Plot
None of the boys playing for the South Park Cows, the town's Little League Baseball team, enjoy the sport at all. They find it boring and play only because of their parents' enthusiasm for it. When they win their final game, they are overjoyed at first, believing that the season is over and they can now enjoy the summer. To their horror, they discover that since they have finished first in their division, they must participate in the post-season playoffs. At a "celebration" meal, the boys discuss plans to lose on purpose without getting in trouble with their parents.

During the playoffs, they learn that the other teams also want out, and have actually trained to lose games. The Cows end up winning again and again against opponents whose efforts at throwing games are more successful, and they reach the state championship. If they win, they will have to spend their entire summer playing baseball on the national circuit.

Meanwhile, Stan's father Randy has taken up trash-talking as a hobby, getting drunk and acting obnoxiously at the games in order to start fights with the fathers of other teams' players. This behavior leads to him being arrested multiple times. While training to be the best fighter he can be, Randy becomes terrified when he meets the Denver Little League team's "Bat Dad", who wears a purple Batman cowl and cape, and who is both heavier and more misbehaved than he is. Randy decides not to attend the championship game in fear that he is not good enough.

The game is played at Coors Field; like the Cows' other opponents, the Denver team does not want to win either. The Cows have drafted Kyle's nerdy cousin Kyle Schwartz, who is terrible at all sports, in the hope of ruining their chances to win. However, the Denver team is the best yet at intentionally losing. Just as the Cows find themselves on the verge of winning, Randy appears in the stands and provokes a fight with the Bat Dad that spills onto the field; the officials warn the two men that the next one who acts aggressively will get his team disqualified. Though Randy gets knocked down, the boys' cheering, combined with a hallucination of a crowd including Mickey Goldmill and his wife Sharon (who had previously stated he could simply choose not to fight if he didn't want to) cheering him on, inspires him to stand up and continue fighting before finally knocking out Bat Dad, resulting in the Cows' disqualification and Denver's victory by default. Randy feels dejected at having cost the Cows the championship as he is placed under arrest, but Stan lifts his spirits by thanking him for doing so. He ends the episode leaping for joy while under police custody.

Production
The episode's idea originally came from series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone thinking that the children of South Park would look cute in baseball uniforms. Parker and Stone also were not fans of baseball themselves so it made sense to have the boys hate baseball. The choice to go ahead with a baseball-themed episode did create some problems animation-wise, however, as most of the children look nearly identical wearing the same uniforms. A lot of time was spent on ensuring that each character was distinguishable from each other. For example, Butters Stotch and Stan Marsh look identical with the same attire. To rectify this, Stan's hair is more prominent than Butters' and Butters has a speaking line early. Additionally, Kenny appears with his hat slightly covering his face, making this one of Kenny's most visible episodes. The episode's plot was originally going to be used in  Best Friends Forever  but was put on hold when they came up with an episode based on the Terri Schiavo case instead.

According to the DVD commentary, "this was a really, really hard episode to do" because sports episodes in general aren't easy but also because the teams are trying to lose. Because they are trying to lose on purpose, new rules are needed which makes it different from any actual sport. The character of Bat Dad made it easier for Parker and Stone, however, as if it got too difficult, they could cut to Bat Dad.