Riv (left), Bash, and Oscar (right) from the “Pinstripes” in Bronx Buds. / Courtesy of YES
New Yankee-themed media is now streaming on the YES App—but it’s not highlight reels, Talkin’ Yanks, or Homegrown. I mean the new cartoon “Bronx Buds.” On August 17, the YES Network premiered the cartoon series about a baseball team in the Bronx called “The Pinstripes.” A unique animation style and short run-time invoke a nostalgic Saturday cartoon. Currently, four 8-minute episodes on the app follow a young baseball team in the Bronx. If you're a Yankee fanatic without a half hour to spare, stay tuned for the run-down.
Episodes are available for streaming on the YES App in partnership with the animation studio Tzero Studios. Tzero Studios commented in a press release common messages of the episodes: the series “introduc[es] laughter, life lessons, unexpected curveballs, and unbreakable friendships.”
So far, the YES Network has released 4 episodes. New episodes will air on September 28 and October 5. Additionally, 15-second shorts have been released on the YES App to introduce the players on the Pinstripes: Riv, Bash, Oscar, and Coach Bud.
Now, let’s get into the plot episode by episode:
Episode 1: “Be the Meatball”
Let me preface: I love a good title theme. Since the episodes are only eight minutes, I expected just a quick title card to kick the story off. But a whole title song with a cute montage? I’m ready to be entertained...
When the episode opens, we see the three main characters getting excited for their game against the Queen's Hamsters. Both Riv, the pitcher, and Bash, their slugger, feel confident about the match, but teammate Oscar is worried by the Hamsters’ stats.
But—before their game—the team decides they need some meatballs. A classic, cartoonish Italian man named “Papa” serves them a meatball pizza. With soft Italian music playing in the background and a meatball product of “300 years of Italian cooking passed down,” Riv and Bash feel entirely at ease. Oscar is troubled by the scary statistics of the Hamster's pitcher.
The team takes Papa’s advice to win the game: “Like the ingredients of a meatball: you all must play as a team. Be the meatball!”
One of my favorite parts of the episode was a recurring joke about the daunting Hamster's pitcher. Anyone who’s played Little League knows what it’s like to face a suspiciously old pitcher. Throughout the episode, the Pinstripes would flinch at the older pitcher’s photo and say: “Their pitcher looks like he’s twenty-five—he’s getting college offers!”
The team sitting in Papa’s pizzeria. / Courtesy of YES
Episode 2: “Hat Rat Fever”
The second episode opens with the gang hard at work on the ballfield. Bash tries to use his hat to catch Oscar’s home run ball, but he loses his hat over the fence. Before they can get the hat back, a rat runs wavy with it. Hence, the title.
We discover after the hat is lost that it belonged to the “great Moonshot Mantello,” and the hat belonged to Bash’s dad. The episode starts to lend itself to The Sandlot from this point on. Except, instead of retrieving Babe’s baseball from The Beast, we’re getting an heirloom hat back from a rat. But a New York City rat might be more frightening than The Beast anyhow.
To get the hat, the group splits up throughout the city to find out where the rat ran off. In the meantime, Papa, the Italian man from the last episode, discovers on the radio that Bash has lost his hat. The baseball reporters tell him that if the hat isn’t found, Bash will be grounded for 3-4 weeks of baseball—devastating. Papa encourages Bash to keep looking so that the team doesn’t lose its best player.
Oscar searches the subway for the hat rat and asks a few friends if they happened to see a rat around. They say they haven’t, but they’ve seen “a rat man—no hat though.” This wins the quote-of-the-episode if they’re referring to Times Square’s Mickey Rat.
Eventually, they find the rat in Central Park. However, they use balloons to lift the hat from the rat to avoid getting any rat diseases. The balloons carry the hat away and land it on top of a convenient statue of Moonshot Mantello to end the episode.
Episode 3: “Curse of the One-Eyed Pigeon”
The episode kicks off with Riv stepping on the chalk along the third baseline—a known superstition. Though the gang agrees that they don’t believe in superstitions, Oscar’s lucky catcher’s mitt breaks, a teammate’s helmet breaks, Bash forgets his bat, and Riv gets pooped on by a one-eyed pigeon. Officially, the team is cursed.
Conveniently, Oscar has a book on all baseball superstitions: the one-eyed Pigeon is one of them. They discover that the one-eyed pigeon lost its eye when it was hit by a home run ball. Anyone who is cursed by the pigeon will never be able to hit again. The only way to reverse the curse is to find the ball that hit the pigeon and hit a home run with it before sunset.
They follow a set of clues in the curse book to find the baseball. The first clue brings them to a secret hideout inside a candy shop. The room is full of lost baseball artifacts from the original Bronx Buds. One of which is the cursed ball.
They get to the ballfield 28 seconds before sunset. To their dismay, it’s raining, and impossible to throw the perfect pitch. Against the odds, Bash hits a home run to dispel the curse.
Episode 4: “Hold the Anchovies Please”
The episode opens with Riv and Bash playing carnival games. They discover there’s a pizza-making contest at the festival—one that Papa will enter. The team decides to visit Papa.
At Papa’s pizzeria, we meet Angelo Anchovy, Papa’s rival. Anchovy intimidates Papa from the competition, so the gang encourages Papa to revisit his family history to make the best pizza. Conveniently, there’s a secret room in the pizzeria full of family pizza-related artifacts. In the family museum, Papa discovers the family cheese blend recipe to win the competition.
At the competition, Papa gets intimidated again, and he starts to forget the recipe. Bash throws the recipe onstage with a paper airplane to save the day.
It’s time for judging, and Anchovy scores a 9.5—the highest score ever. Not to worry, Papa scores a perfect 10 for his family cheese pizza recipe. Papa Sardine is officially “the pizza king of New York.”
With only four episodes out so far, the Bronx Buds cartoon pays an adorable homage to the Bronx and New York City as a whole. If you can find a half hour to binge the episodes, I highly suggest you do. Not to mention, the next time you’re asked to name three Yankee players, go ahead and flip the question around: name three kids on the Pinstripes. I’m sure few will have an answer to that.
Edited by Brooke Weinrich
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