Can the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Play Cricket?
Examining a silly "sports scene" in a classic.
Ok, goal time! A Tuesday post. I intend to make this my normal “posting day.” See you next week, I hope!
You can watch the scene I’m talking about above, provided it doesn’t get pulled off of YouTube. Or, you can probably find the original movie cheap online somewhere!
The 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is a fantastic sports-themed scene featuring a fight between the “bad boy” turtle Raphael and the sports-clad anti-hero Casey Jones. Ok, “fantastic” may be the nostalgic 8-year-old me remembering this movie. Regardless, there’s a fun bit of sports banter that has me questioning if either Raphael or Casey Jones likes sports.
Now, before we get going, I know what you’re going to say - “Dre, Dre … Dre”, you’ll say - “This is just using sports buzzword in situations that semi-relate to the real world. It is not about exact rule precision. This is why people get annoyed at sports nerds like you.” To that, I counter? Let’s get going.
The fight starts because Raphael stops some purse-snatchers. They flee and run into Casey Jones, wearing a hockey goalie mask and ready to exact vengeance. Raphael shows up and argues there’s no need to beat up the thieves. Casey Jones disagrees, and the thieves escape while the two heroes are fighting. A pretty common trope in comics and now superhero movies.
Casey Jones starts by attacking the thieves with a hockey stick and a fun schtick. He says they’re getting a penalty for the action he then enacts on them. His “penalties”:
Two minutes for “slashing,” followed by slashing a thief with his stick.
Two minutes for “hooking,” followed by him hooking a thief with his stick.
Two minutes for “high sticking,” well, read on.
These are all valid hockey violations and the punishment listed is correct for all of them. That said, when Casey goes for “high sticking,” he holds his hockey stick high above his head and looks like he’s about to deliver a brutal blow or two to the thugs. Right before he can hit them, though, Raphael knocks him from behind.
A side question. If, hypothetically, Raphael had been slower or decided not to chase after the thieves, Casey Jones would have murdered them, right? The entire movie would be the police chasing down a double homicide in central park, which Raphael might even potentially be blamed for, as he was seen in public attacking them. It would have made a much different movie. Raphael as “The Fugitive” would be an excellent movie, and I want it now. But back to silly sports analogies.
After hitting Casey Jones, Raphael says: “How about a five-minute game misconduct for roughing pal?” Ok, he ruins the whole thing. A “game misconduct” means the player is removed from the game. While a penalty may still be assessed for the action, roughing is a two-minute penalty, and oddly, not a penalty game misconduct is usually called for. Also, as Casey Jones is the only active player, is he getting five minutes or tossed from the game? Or Is Raphael tossing himself, using the weird “call the penalty on yourself” theme Casey Jones started? It’s very confusing.
I should stress, the five-minute research I did to look up hockey penalties in 2021 — which led me to this site — certainly makes me more of an expert than Raphael in 1990— moving on. Casey Jones pulls out two baseball bats and proceeds to attack Raphael. Let’s leave the wanton disregard for the rules of baseball aside. Casey has the solid, albeit cliche, line: “You need to be taught a lesson, pal. The class is ‘Pain 101’. Your instructor is Casey Jones.” While attacking Raphael, Raphael notices the bats are Jose Canseco bats and quips that he hopes Casey Jones didn’t pay for them.
This joke is definitely odd and may be dated. In 1988 Jose Canseco won the MVP. In 1989, he missed most of the season with a wrist injury but came back and helped the Athletics win a World Series. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in March of 1990, basically right after the 1989 season. So the insult may have been based on the regular season, not the post-season. Of course, given Jose Canseco’s career, steroid scandal, and post-playing career, it’s possible, with a time machine, Raphael knew what he was talking about. And for those that have forgotten, the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is about time travel— moving on!
Casey Jones explains the bats were a two-for-one special. That explains having two of them but doesn’t make it against the rules any less. Raphael gets one of the bats and starts swinging it against Casey Jones. Casey Jones remarks: “Strike one” when Raphael misses with his first swing, getting back to solid sports metaphors. Raphael flips over Casey Jones before knocking him to the ground with the Jose Canseco bat. Raphael then returns to messing up sports metaphors. He shouts “Home Run” before declaring himself the winner 1-0. Both the strength and type of hit would be generous to call it a home run. It was more of a routine ground ball. Also, this was apparently a one-inning game, and Raphael just got a walk-off run? Highly suspect.
Casey Jones gets up, says “new game,” and pulls out a cricket bat. Raphael says: “Cricket, nobody understands cricket! You’ve got to know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.” And with that, you get a brief Cricket and crumpet tutorial.
Crumpet Tutorial
A crumpet is just an English Muffin. That’s it, end of that lesson.
Cricket Tutorial
Some cricket rules. Cricket, like baseball, has, essentially, a pitcher and a batter. In cricket, the pitcher is called a “bowler.” They are attempting to throw a ball such that it hits one of three sticks, called wickets, such that a piece of wood on the top, called a bail, falls off. A batter, called a batsman in cricket, both attempt to guard the wickets while also attempting to score. They can score in one of three ways. If they hit the ball to or past the wall, they earn six runs. Think a home run in baseball with football (American football!) scoring. If they hit the ball such that it hits the wall via rolling, they get four runs. Think a ground-rule double in baseball. If they hit the ball in the air such that the opponent catches it, they’re out. Same as baseball. If they hit the ball and it isn’t caught, they and a teammate basically run laps back and forth between two sets of wickets. Every complete cycle they do is a run. If the fielders can throw the ball such that it hits the wickets before a runner gets to them, they are out. Pretty similar to baseball and base running. There are some funny other details. For instance, look up “lbw,” but that’s the basics.
Back to Casey Jones sports metaphor. He hits Raphael square in the head with the cricket bat conservatively knocking him several feet in the air and into a trash can. He proclaims “Six runs,” before running off. Back to my original point. In the realm of just exclaiming a sports term, e.g. touchdown, after doing something impressive? Hitting a turtle, that has to weigh, at least three hundred pounds, several feet off the ground with a cricket bat? Definitely impressive and worthy of a “Touchdown”, “Home Run”, “Six Runs” like explanation. But in the pedantic realm of being an overanalytical sports nerd? How big is this cricket field? A standard cricket field has a diameter of somewhere between 450-500 feet. Meaning a six-run hit would travel about 225-250 feet. At least! Raphael maybe flew a couple of feet back. Of course, by the rules of Raphael’s home run? This easily qualifies. Also, was Raphael six runs? Or is Casey Jones out because the garbage can “caught him?” It’s hard to say.
When I started researching this post, it was because I had just looked up cricket rules and remembered this scene from TMNT (what the cool kids call it!) In review, it appears that Casey Jones has a decent understanding of sports, despite a proclivity to break the rules. Raphael seems to have a far weaker understanding of sports. And you might say “Dre, Dre, … Dre. Is it possible being raised in the sewer removed from society and only viewing things like sports via television may have prevented Raphael from learning the rules perfectly? Cut him some slack?” And to that, I say, thanks for reading!
p.s. I enjoy wasting time on twitch.tv/nerdnumbers in the evenings. While this is mostly an excuse for me to relax and play Zelda 2, apparently I use it to workshop my articles, including this one! So if you want extra sneak previews of posts, but with Nintendo music and me getting distracted? 10pm EST weekdays (for now), is for you!