FanPost

Keller's Comics Corner: R & R & X

For the last dozen years, the biggest comic-book movie buzz has surrounded the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, produced by Marvel Studios, now a part of Disney. Lost in that excitement has been proper appreciation for the first successful (sorry, Howard) film adaptation of a Marvel Comics Universe property - the X-Men, at the time far and away Marvel's most popular comics franchise. Although the team by that name was created by the legendary Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, the popularity that led to their becoming adapted for the big screen was the result of the stories and character work written from 1975 through 1991 by Chris Claremont. And one of the many things he introduced into X-Men lore is a penchant for playing baseball pick-up games when they have a little down-time. Unlike any other games discussed in this series, there aren't any concrete divisions between the teams - they're all X-Men just out for some play-time in the schoolyard (after all, their headquarters is the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters).

It's actually a bit strange for baseball to have been the leisure sport of choice starting at that point in X-Men history. While the original X-Men were all American, the new X-Men were very intentionally created as a diverse, international group of heroes - Nightcrawler is German, Wolverine is Canadian, Storm is African (though her father was an American from Harlem - I note with bemusement that until the introduction of the second Captain Marvel in 1982, every African-American Marvel super hero was from Harlem), Banshee is Irish and Colossus is Russian - from nations where baseball is either unpopular or at most, secondary in popularity. Ironically, the new X-Men's first appearance (written not by Claremont, but by Len Wein) did include two heroes who came from countries where baseball is of primary popularity - Sunfire from Japan and Thunderbird from the United States - but they were both gone from the book when X-Men baseball made its first appearance. I suppose that since the X-Men are based in the US, and a few members of the original team still served, there's some sort of "melting pot" effect to be expected. Odd or not, the X-Men have been seen playing baseball quite a bit, and any series of articles on the subject of baseball in comic books would be deficient without them. Baseball and the X-Men are so well known for going together, that one of the issues actually featured this logo on the splash page:

X-Men baseball logo

(For convenience's sake, I will link to Wikipedia entries of individuals every time they appear in a game, but will only include character annotations the first time, unless there is some in-game significance or status change from the prior game.)

Background, Part 1

Uncanny X-Men # 110 (April, 1978) featured the return to the regular cast of Jean Grey (sort of...more on that later), one of the original 1960's X-Men using the name Marvel Girl, recently (at this point) changed to the more-powerful Phoenix. The X-Men had just returned from an exhausting outer-space adventure, and Dr. Moira MacTaggert, a colleague of Professor Charles Xavier, was returning home to Scotland. A picnic and friendly baseball game on the mansion's lawn was the perfect, relaxing way to mark the occasion.

Uncanny X-Men # 110

Play Ball!

We are witness to two at-bats in this issue, but the images are contradictory as far as the actual team alignments go. As Moira, who is playing in the game when the issue opens, leaves after that first at-bat, the likelihood is that the teams were changed after she left. When the issue opens, we see the following players in the field:

Pitcher Nightcrawler Played by Alan Cummings in X2 and by Kodi Smit-McPhee in subsequent films. Given his unusual hands, I imagine he was expected to be as good a pitcher as Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown.
Catcher Banshee The first X-Man to be portrayed in live-action media, he was played by Jeremy Ratchford in the 1996 TV movie Generation X. He appeared in the Fox film franchise in X-Men: First Class, played by Caleb Landry Jones.
First Base Wolverine The most popular X-Man, portrayed in most of the Fox X-Men films by Hugh Jackman.
Second Base Moira MacTaggert Portrayed in the films by Olivia Williams and Rose Byrne.
Third Base/Left Infield Phoenix Believed at the time to actually be Jean Grey, portrayed in the X-Men films by Famke Janssen.

As for the team at bat, since we only see one batter, we don't know the actual batting order. Also, I am assuming that any able-bodied character (i.e., excluding the wheelchair-bound Professor X) depicted who is not in the field is a member of the batting team, though that leaves the teams uneven.

Colossus Played by Daniel Cudmore in the X-Men films, and by Stefan Kapičić and Andre Tricoteux in the Deadpool films. He is the only player seen batting in this game.
Cyclops Portrayed by James Marsden in the early X-Men films, and later by Tim Pocock and Tye Sheridan.
Storm Portrayed by Halle Berry in the early X-Men films, and later by Alexandria Shipp.

All we know of the game before this point is that Colossus had been up to bat twice and hit a home runs each time, the most recent time almost hitting the windshield of an airplane in flight. The issue opens with Nightcrawler throwing a fastball in the lower inside corner of the strike zone, and Colossus again hits it in the air. Phoenix uses her telekinesis to grab the ball from mid-air, which I suppose does not, per house rules, count as a caught ball. She throws the ball to Wolverine at first, who attempts, using his claws, to keep Colossus from the bag, but Colossus turns his body to steel and barrels into him, reaching base safely. (They were playing with a house rule that a runner needed to be tagged to be put out, Wolverine couldn't simply step on the bag.)

At the conclusion of the play, Moira excuses herself, as it was 4 PM and she was expecting someone from the phone company to arrive. The X-Men have continued play, with the following at-bat shown as a monitor screen image, the fielding team depicted as:

Pitcher Phoenix
Catcher Cyclops

and representing the batting team:

Wolverine
Storm

Since Wolverine was on the field with Phoenix in the first scene and Cyclops was not, the X-Men presumably re-mixed the teams after Moira left. In any case, all we see of that lineup is Phoenix winding up to pitch to Wolverine, no idea what the result of the at-bat is. Next we see of them, the X-Men are leaving the field to return to the mansion.

And now...the rest of the story

As it turned out, the man Moira let in to the mansion was really a phony phone company man, and instead was a super-soldier called Warhawk, who was hired to plant spying devices in the mansion and test the X-Men's skills. It was later revealed that his employer was the Hellfire Club, who would be introduced two years later to become significant X-Men foes.

Background, Part 2

The next time they're seen playing baseball is in Uncanny X-Men Annual # 7, dated 1983:

Uncanny X-Men Annual # 7

Play Ball!

The story opens with some X-Men enjoying the newly-arrived spring season by playing a 3-on-3 game of baseball with full use of their powers allowed. We are told nothing of the inning or the score, other than dialogue saying (before the action we see commences) that the game is in progress and that the batting team is losing, though the score is still close. As we are shown only one pitch of baseball action, we know the positions only of the team in the field:

Pitcher Wolverine
Catcher* Nightcrawler *Since he can teleport, he is not only catching but can field the ball anywhere it is hit.
Fielder Rogue Played by Anna Paquin in the first 3 X-Men movies. Unlike in the films, she first appeared as a villain, but turned to the X-Men and promised to mend her ways in order to enlist Professor X's help in controlling her powers, as she could not touch anyone without temporarily absorbing their powers and memories. At this point in comic book history, she also possesses the powers of flight, super-strength and invulnerability, having absorbed, for unknown reasons permanently, said powers from Carol Danvers, currently known (and featured in MCU movies) as Captain Marvel (at the time called Ms. Marvel). Her flight powers made her useful as a fielder in a 3-on-3 game.

As for the team at bat, not only do we not know what their fielding positions are, but we also don't know their batting order. One player is at bat, and no one is on base. Only the captions even tell us who is on that team! So, in alphabetical order, that team consists of:

Colossus He is the only player seen batting in this story.
Kitty Pryde Played by Katie Stuart in X2 and by Elliot Page (then using the name Ellen Page) in X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Storm

The only baseball action we see is Wolverine throwing a single pitch to Colossus, which he hits extremely high and far (without using his powers, strangely). The fielding team gives up on catching it, which presumably means that Colossus has hit a home run. Whether or not this changes the result of the game depends on whether the score being "close" was a mere one-run difference or more than that, something we are not told. The X-Men are then surprised to see what at first appears to be the ball descending back to their patch of ground...

And now...the rest of the story

...which turns out to be not the ball, but a spaceship, carrying the cosmic pest called the Impossible Man. Previously associated only with the Fantastic Four, Claremont decided to make use of him for the X-Men's entry in the humorously-themed "Assistant Editors Month", which also featured such absurdities as the Avengers appearing on Late Night with David Letterman and Spider-Man's Aunt May and Franklin Richards, son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, stopping Galactus by feeding him Hostess Twinkies. (This was explained in continuity as a dream.) Impy stole the X-Men's mansion and then proceeded to tour the super-hero sites of Earth to amass artifacts in order to win a scavenger hunt against others from his planet. In the end, he is judged the loser of the contest and returns all the items to their owners. However, he turned out to have so much enjoyed "playing" with the X-Men that he returns four (publication) years later to have more fun...this time with their younger team, the New Mutants.

Background, Part 3

The cover of the previously-discussed issue depicted veteran X-Man Cyclops, who actually does not appear in the story at all. The reason for this his absence that he was on his honeymoon with his wife, Madelyne Pryor, one of the truly tragic and confusing figures in the Marvel Comics universe. Cyclops met her and was immediately struck by her physical resemblance to Jean Grey, whom he had loved and who he saw die in his arms, committing suicide to prevent her power from destroying the universe. He fell in love with Madelyne, but couldn't (thanks at least in part to the X-Men's enemy Mastermind) shake the feeling that she might actually be Jean re-incanated somehow, but that was eventually resolved to be not the case. He married Madelyne and had supposedly given up the super-hero life for domesticity, but his head could never get out of the X-zone, and whenever the X-Men needed him, he came running, to the point where Madelyne actually gave birth to their son in the X-Mansion in his absence. When he returned from an adventure which saw Professor X leave for outer space for life-saving treatments, he felt obligated to return to full-time duty to succeed him as leader of the X-Men, a sense of obligation that Madelyne greatly resented. As the two of them argued about that, some of the other X-Men indulged in a game of baseball on the lawn.

X-Men # 201

Play Ball!

The teams are not actually defined in the text - we see five X-Men fielding, but only one hitting, and no one else obviously on the sidelines waiting to bat (though there are numerous other mutants on grounds who might make up the batting team, off-panel). The fielders are:

Pitcher Kitty Pryde
Catcher Magik Colossus's younger sister and a member of the less-experienced "New Mutants" team. She was played by Anya Taylor-Joy in the New Mutants movie.
Right Infield Wolverine
Left Infield Nightcrawler
Outfield Rogue

The lone batter we see is Colossus, and it's impossible to say if he's batting as a member of a team, or if they're simply taking turns batting for fun. There is someone umping the proceedings (New Mutant Danielle Moonstar), so it looks like it should be a more formal game, but there's no other evidence of it. No one speaks of the score or of winning or losing, and no one other than the fielders are seen near the playing field, though there are a number of other residents of the X-Mansion who might be on Colossus's team, out of the reader's sight.

The scene depicted has Colossus with one strike on him already (no idea if any balls), and Kitty burns a fastball by him which he whiffs at for strike two. On the next pitch, however, he displays an impressive knowledge and extreme application of forward weight-shifting, per former Royals hitting coach Charley Lau:

Colossus batting

(Why he never, at least that we could see, hit armored before, I have no idea, since other X-Men used their powers freely. But he seems to have been a powerful enough hitter without using that advantage.) The ball is hit extremely high, but strangely, unlike in the previous game, Rogue actually flies after it to catch it. She makes the grab in mid-air, just outside the window of Air Force One (on which she plants a kiss), carrying then-president Ronald Reagan. Why she so readily gave up last time, when Colossus didn't even armor up to hit it, I couldn't say...maybe this was their only ball that day.

And now...the rest of the story

The main plot of the issue is, as the cover indicates, a (friendly) contest between Cyclops and Storm (then powerless) for field leadership for the X-Men. Cyclops lost, leaving him to return full-time to family life. While Madelyne was happy to have him back, she was unhappy that it was only because he lost his fight.

But things got worse for Madelyne. This issue (and several other published simultaneously with a cover date of January, 1986) served as preludes to the new series X-Factor. re-uniting the five original X-Men, as Jean Grey was revealed (in two others of those issues) to have not been transformed into Phoenix, but to have had been hidden away for her body to heal and Phoenix had actually been a distinct entity which copied Jean. When the other original X-Men notified Cyclops of this, he abandoned his wife and son (incidentally, this issue marks the first appearance of that son, who would grow up to be the popular super-hero Cable) to return to Jean and to super-hero action, Madelyne only knowing of the latter. A year later, Madelyne was attacked and her son kidnaped by a group of villains calling themselves the Marauders, driving her to hook up with the X-Men for protection. After an adventure in which the X-Men (including her) sacrificed their souls to stop a demon from conquering the world, a goddess resurrected them in a manner that allowed the world to think they remained dead. They took up residence in the Australian outback, and while there, Madelyne discovered that not only was her husband with his former teammates, but that included the girlfriend who she had resembled that he had thought dead. She made a deal with a demon to find her son and get revenge on Cyclops. During that story of demonic revenge, it came out that she actually was, after all the previous red herrings, a clone of Jean Grey! The villainous geneticist Mister Sinister (who was the boss of the Marauders) had cloned Jean Grey, and when Phoenix committed suicide a bit of the power latched on to the clone and gave it life. Sinister gave the now-living clone false memories and put her in a position to meet Cyclops, as Sinister's real goal was the child that the pair would produce (and whom he had kidnaped). This revelation drove Madelyne over the edge and led her to attempt a demonic takeover of the world, with a vengeful murder-suicide attempt on Jean. However, the bit of the Phoenix that had animated Madelyne in the first place saved Jean, and Madelyne, abandoned by her husband because he never loved her as an individual and then discovering that she was never really an individual in the first place, died. (As an aside, this was not the original intention of Chris Claremont for the character, his plan was for Madelyne to be a totally ordinary person and for Cyclops to live with her "happily ever after" rather than un-heroically abandon his wife and son.)

Background, Part 4

It was immediately after this story that Chris Claremont decided to write a pair of fun "down time" issues, one featuring the four female members of the team, and the other featuring the males. The women spent a day out at the glitzy Hollywood Mall (their Australian base came conveniently equipped with an aborigine named Gateway who had mutant teleportation powers), which was home to the orphaned teenage mutant Jubilee. After saving Jubilee from an inept (Ghostbusters-parody) team of mutant-hunters hired by the mall security guards, they returned to Australia via Gateway's portal...and Jubilee, unbeknownst to them, followed. (As an aside, the mens' downtime issue was a hilarious parody of DC's big company crossover "Invasion!", and features a host of pop-culture aliens as Easter Eggs.) The follow-up to that story was in the back-up tale to 1989's Uncanny X-Men Annual # 13 (the lead story of which was part of a company-wide crossover and irrelevant in the long term to X-Men continuity):

Uncanny X-Men Annual # 13

Jubilee, with some help from Gateway, finds her way into the extensive, technology-lined tunnel network underneath the X-Men's headquarters town and finds herself a secluded warren in which to live, hidden from them. She sneaks around, stealing food, clothing and other items (the X-Men wonder at the disappearances, but don't bother investigating the matter) and all the while, watches and admires the X-Men, wishing to join them but too shy to approach the powerful, confident adults. And one thing she watches them do is play baseball.

Play Ball!

At this point in X-Men history, there are eight members of the team, seven of whom are seen playing the game. I will assume that the game is four-on-four, and the unseen member is on the team seen at bat. No clear mention is made of the score, number of outs or current inning, though a comment by Rogue (batting against Havok), "Just wait until I'm pitching against you" might imply that she's her team's pitcher and it's either the top of the first inning, or the bottom of the first, the others went down 1-2-3, and Havok is batting fourth. However, it's also possible that she plans to take over as a reliever, or that her comment simply refers to a hypothetical future game. In the field are:

Pitcher Havok Brother of Cyclops and a non-original member of the first set of X-Men. Forced back into action when Malice, one of the Marauders, possessed his girlfriend, Polaris (also a member of that X-Men team). Played by Lucas Till in the X-Men films.
Catcher Colossus
Infield Psylocke Played by Olivia Munn in X-Men: Apocalypse
Outfield Storm

We don't know who led off the game, but the batting order of the team at bat at least has the first three listed below batting in the following sequence:

Wolverine
Dazzler A mutant singer who was only ever a reluctant super-hero before, she was possessed by Malice before Polaris (see Havok above) and was made to attack the X-Men, after which she officially joined the team. Halston Sage made a cameo appearance as her in the Dark Phoenix movie.
Rogue As mentioned above, it's possible that she's pitching for this team.
Longshot A freedom fighter from another dimension, he appeared, amnesiac, on the X-Men's doorstep and was adopted into the team. He's not pictured in the baseball scene; no idea if his place in the batting order is between the above three (and he was out) or if he bats after Rogue/before Wolverine (no idea who led off the game). Never portrayed in live-action, but he did appear in the X-Men animated television series in the 1990s.

Our view of the game starts with Wolverine the runner on second base, and Dazzler on first. Rogue swings and misses at Havok's first pitch (that we see), and fouls off the next one to the third base side. On the next pitch, though, she hits the ball high and far...but not out of reach of Storm, who flies up to catch it. That's all we know of the game, as Jubilee, the point-of-view character, steps away to return to her foraging.

And now...the rest of the story

The rest of the story continues Jubilee's explorations of the underground parts of the outback town, concluding with her encounter with cyborg watchdogs, which she kills with her mutant power, which is to create explosive fireworks from her hands.

You see, the X-Men were not the original builders of these headquarters...they took it from a team of cyborg villains called the Reavers, who, coincidentally, were led by old X-Men enemy Donald Pierce. A few issues after this, while Wolverine is on a solo adventure (by far the most popular X-Man, he was given his own ongoing series in 1988), the Reavers returned to reclaim their base and to attack the X-Men, and the X-Men who were present escaped to another dimension. Wolverine returned into an ambush, and the Reavers crucified and tortured him while Jubilee secretly watched, knowing she was not powerful enough to take on multiple hostile cyborgs. However, when Wolverine managed to pull himself free of the cross during a lull in the Reavers' watchfulness, Jubilee came to his aid, nursed him back to health to the best of her ability, and together, they escaped from the Reavers. Jubilee became Wolverine's personal sidekick and eventually, when the X-Men reunited, a full member of the team.

Background, Part 5

Chris Claremont left the X-Men books two years later, but the popularity of the X-books continued to increase under other writers. Marvel, discovering that putting the letter "X" on the cover of a book as basically a license to print money, co-opted the phrase "Generation X" (popularized by novelist Douglas Coupland as the name for a demographic group in his book of that name) for a new hero group and title, and also re-branded the New Mutants as "X-Force". Though the various X-Men-related teams had distinct membership, they were all part of one big family, and Marvel celebrated that fact by having them all gather for a baseball game to open Uncanny X-Men # 325, dated October, 1995, which (roughly speaking) marked the 20th Anniversary of the new X-Men team's first appearance (hence the fold-out cover, as depicted below).

Uncanny X-Men # 325

Play Ball!

Given how many baseball games the X-Mansion's lawn has hosted (the X-Men re-established their headquarters there after re-uniting a while following the aforementioned other-dimensional escape from the Reavers), it was about time that they laid out a formal baseball field. In this issue, we finally see a batting cage in use during an X-baseball game. Perhaps this is because there are finally enough X-characters to play a regulation baseball game. While the full lineups for the game are not known, there are enough characters off-panel who might well be in the game that I would not assume they played this one short-handed. While we don't know for certain what inning the game is in, nor the score, Bishop asks, at the end of the action depicted, "Did we win?" which might imply that the game was in the bottom of the ninth and the score had been tied. In the field are:

Pitcher Cyclops
Catcher Beast One of the original X-Men and also a one-time member of the Avengers. He is portrayed in the films by Kelsey Grammer and by Nicholas Hoult.
First Base Cannonball Originally one of the New Mutants, at this time recently "graduated" to the main X-Men team. He appears in the New Mutants film, played by Charlie Heaton.
Second Base or Shortstop Jean Grey
Third Base Skin A member of the young Generation X team, his body has a lot of extra skin, which he can manipulate in a stretchiness effect (otherwise it hangs on him, like a very loose sweatsuit). He appeared in the Generation X TV Movie, played by Agustin Rodriguez.
Position Unknown Storm

We don't know the entire batting team, and it's possible that other members of that team batted and got out between the three listed below, but given their positions on the bases, the order of the known batters, at least, is:

Bishop A mutant policeman from the future, come to the present time chasing a time-traveling criminal. Played by Omar Sy in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Jubilee Played by Lana Condor in X-Men: Apocalypse. At this point in time, she's working with the Generation X team and had been in the Generation X TV movie, played by Heather McComb.
M Also a member of the Generation X team, she was played in the Generation X TV movie by Amarilis.

Wolverine is present at the game and is not playing in the field, but it does not seem that he's participating in the game at all, as when he speaks, Storm seems surprised to discover that he's present.

With M at the plate, Bishop, the runner on third, notices that Jean and Cyclops (who are by now married) are flirting and therefore distracted, so he breaks for home. Storm calls Cyclops's attention to this fact, and he throws the ball to Beast, catching Bishop in a rundown. Bishop heads back to third, where Skin, whose holds Bishop wrapped up in his namesake excess skin (just think of it as a stretchable arm, a la Mister Fantastic or Plastic Man. The game is supposed to be a no-powers affair, but Skin claims lack of control), attempts to catch the ball from Beast. Bishop, though, yanks Skin off the ground and heads back toward home. Jean picks up the ball to throw to Beast, who attempts to catch it, just as Bishop slides home. The result is a tangled pile-up that includes Skin, Beast, Bishop and umpire Banshee, with batter M sitting on top, casually playing with the ball. As mentioned above, Bishop, dazed, asks, "Did we win?" but the answer to that question never comes. We might infer, from M's possession of the ball, that Beast never caught it and therefore never tagged Bishop out, but it's not clear that Bishop touched the plate, either. The whole scene dissolves into laughter and never returns to baseball play.

And now...the rest of the story

Shortly after the pile-up at the plate is untangled, Colossus, who had left the X-Men for a different team, and Callisto, former leader of the Morlocks (a group of disfigured mutants who once lived in the sewers beneath New York City), appear on the field. That day happened to be the anniversary of a massacre of the Morlock population (an event orchestrated by Mister Sinister, the man behind Madelyne Pryor), and a younger generation of Morlocks who had since lived a grueling, constant-battle-for-survival existence, decided that they would massacre humans in revenge. Colossus and Callisto came to enlist the aid of the X-Men, and specifically Storm, who had taken over leadership of the Morlocks from Callisto years earlier, to stop them. (Storm had done so in order to save the X-Men from death at the Morlocks' hands, but never actively led them, and actually left Callisto to continue running the community in her name.) Unfortunately, Marrow, the leader of these younger Morlocks, considered Storm's neglect of the group to be responsible for the massacre and their subsequent miserable situation and would not be pacified. She rigged the bombs with which she would carry out her planned human massacre to count down with her heartbeats, forcing Storm to kill her (in true X-Men fashion, she was later revealed to not really be dead).

Background, Part 6

Chris Claremont returned as writer of the X-Men with issue # 444 cover-dated July, 2004.

Uncanny X-Men # 444

Since the last time he worked on the book, a new twist on Cyclops's love life was introduced - Jean Grey had died (again?) and he had fallen in love with Emma Frost, once an enemy of the X-Men as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Also belonging to the team, however, was Rachel Grey - introduced during Claremont's first run (in he story "Days of Future Past", which was adapted as one of the Fox X-Men films) as the daughter of Cyclops and Jean from an alternate future, which never came to pass in the mainstream Marvel Universe. Although her mother was not the Jean from whom Cyclops had now moved on, she still felt a degree of filial allegiance to her memory, and nursed a not-so-subtle resentment of Emma. Could there be a more perfect way for the writer who introduced X-baseball to address this?

Play Ball!

This issue represents the most completely-described baseball game in the entire X-Men series. Another change made to the X-Men status quo during the intervening years was to make Xavier's, which was always nominally a school but kept the nature of its headmaster and its very small student body a secret, publicly a school for young mutants, leading to a bigger student body and faculty. As part of this expansion, a set of bleachers, scoreboard and announcer's booth were added to the baseball field. With original New Mutants Karma and Danielle Moonstar acting as announcers, we are treated to the complete fielding alignment of the team designated as the visitors:

Pitcher Kitty Pryde Pitched the first eight innings (and perhaps also the first two outs of the ninth)
Rachel Grey Relieved Kitty at some point during the ninth inning. At this point in time, she is using the code-name Marvel Girl in tribute to her mother. Never portrayed in live-action media.
Catcher Nightcrawler
First Base Cannonball
Second Base Wolverine
Shortstop Magma Originally a member of the New Mutants, but was not featured in the film of that name, nor in any other live-action media.
Third Base Sage Once an employee of the villainous Hellfire Club. Played by Hayley Lovitt in the Fox TV series The Gifted.
Left Field Gambit Portrayed by Taylor Kitsch in the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A film featuring him with Channing Tatum playing the character had been in development for years, eventually being cancelled.
Center Field Storm
Right Field

Rogue

At this point in X-Men history, she no longer has Carol Danvers's powers of flight, super-strength and invulnerability.

The announcers only list the "home" team players who are on the field of play, so we don't know the complete lineup. Notwithstanding any batters who were out between the runners being on base, the ones we know of bat in the following order (though we don't know where the order actually starts from):

Beast
Cyclops
Husk Younger sister of Cannonball and originally a member of the Generation X team, since graduated to the X-Men. Never portrayed in live-action media.
Emma Frost Originally the villainous White Queen of the Hellfire Club, she had reformed and become co-teacher of Generation X after saving that group of young mutants from aliens. She was portrayed in the Generation X TV movie by Finola Hughes and in X-Men: First Class by January Jones.

It's the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded with Husk, Cyclops and Beast on first, second and third, respectively. There are two outs and Rachel has two strikes on Emma. The "visiting" team has a 1-0 lead, that run having come in the fifth inning, and the bases are loaded with the first three "home" team players listed above, in order from third to first. Rachel throws chin music to Emma three times, leading to a full count and to umpire Bishop issuing her a warning. (One of the announcers declares about the payoff pitch that a hit or ball four would mean a win for the "home" team, but is incorrect on that second point, it would only tie the game.) Emma, determined to not allow Rachel to make a fool of her, uses her telepathy to read Rachel's mind and saw plans to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. She prepares to swing at that, but Rachel - a telepath herself, who knows how to mask her thoughts - actually throws a curveball, and Emma goes down, her hard swing landing her on the ground. A brawl almost ensues, but Bishop and Nightcrawler defuse the situation. The final result of the game: "Visitors" 1, "Home" 0.

And now...the rest of the story

The continuation of the issue is unrelated to the baseball game. But the antagonism displayed in the final plate appearance is revisited several issues later, when Emma and Rachel are paired with one another on a mission to infiltrate the Hellfire Club. After some initial friction, Emma convinces Rachel that she's not a threat to her "mother's" memory and even teaches her a telepathic trick Rachel hadn't been capable of doing before.

Background, Part 7

As noted at the beginning of this article, the X-Men movies were a separate franchise, controlled by Marvel licensee Fox, and not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is controlled by Marvel Comics's own parent company, Disney. Although Disney had no desire to kill the X-Men comics, they wanted to promote the properties over which they had full control over those which would earn money for rival studios. As a result of this, Marvel Comics started heavily promoting the Inhumans, a race of super-powered beings who were for all intents and purposes very similar to mutants, the franchise of which belonged with X-Men. The culmination of this in the comic books was a story in which a cloud of "Terrigen Mist", the source of the Inhumans' powers, was proven toxic to mutants and was spreading though Earth's atmosphere. The X-Men teleported the X-Mansion and all affected mutants they could find to a magical "Limbo" dimension, and were then manipulated to fight a war against the Inhumans, a big comics event that would raise the Inhumans' profile in the comic books. The final result was that the Terrigen cloud was destroyed, the manipulator defeated by the X-Men and Inhumans acting together, and the X-Men were able to repatriate the mutant refugees back to their homes on Earth. When the last refugee is returned, the X-Men, finding that they for once have some time on their hands, decide, in the final scene of May, 2017's Extraordinary X-Men # 20, that nothing would feel more like a return to normalcy than a game of baseball.

Extraordinary X-Men # 20

Play Ball!

Although we only see one at-bat, it at least seems possible that this game is six-on-five, as there are eleven somewhat humanoid X-Men present. The six players in the field are:

Pitcher Marvel Girl (Jean Grey) No, she's not alive again, this is a young Marvel Girl pulled from the past along with her four teammates in the original X-Men.
Catcher Nightcrawler
First Base Iceman The present-day version, not the young one who came from the past with the aforementioned Marvel Girl. Played by Shawn Ashmore in the earlier X-Men films.
Second Base Storm
Shortstop Magik
Third Base Colossus

There is no one in the outfield, but as this game is not explicitly said to be a no-powers game, we can assume that Nightcrawler's teleportation, Storm's flying or Marvel Girl's telekinesis can handle any ball hit out of the infield. As for the batting team's lineup, Assuming that all other humanoid characters present are members of said team, it consists of:

Old Man Logan An alternate-future version of Wolverine (who is dead in the main universe's timeline), merged into the mainstream Marvel Universe following the second Secret Wars. The story in which this version of the character first appeared was to some degree the basis for the film Logan. He is the only character seen batting, the others listed below, assumed to be on this team, are listed alphabetically.
Anole A young mutant with a reptillian appearance. Has not appeared in any other media.
Ernst Has the appearance of a young girl aged prematurely. Mostly acts as a mouthpiece for teammate No-Girl, a telepathic, (otherwise) disembodied brain in a globe. Has not appeared in any other media.
Forge A mutant inventor who has been and on-and-off member of the team since the Claremont days. He has not been depicted in any live-action media, but did appear in the X-Men animated series.
Glob Herman Has the appearance of a skeleton surrounded by a transparent, gelatinous body. He has not appeared in any other media.

The only baseball action we see is Logan swinging and missing at a pitch from Marvel Girl (which is why he is listed first among the non-fielders). He seems to then be arguing with Nightcrawler and pointing to his eyes, which would seem to imply a ball-or-strike disagreement, which would in turn imply another pitch, at which Logan did not swing.

The story continues in the one-shot special issue X-Men Prime # 1, in which Storm hands over leadership of the X-Men to Kitty Pryde, and she decides that the X-Mansion should be re-located to Central Park in New York. This in turn leads directly into X-Men Gold # 1:

X-Men Gold # 1

which features more X-Men playing baseball. This time, it's pretty clear that these characters are simply batting around for fun rather than playing a formal team vs team game. Nightcrawler is depicted in the field, and in the next at-bat, he is batting while the others who were with him in the field remained there. It is not very well illustrated, perhaps because artist Adrian Syaf comes from a country (Indonesia, to be precise) that where baseball has very little popularity. The batting cage and bleachers are there from one of the earlier X-Men games, and there is a batting area and foul lines chalked out, but no pitcher's mound, and no bases, and none of the players in the field are wearing gloves, so it's uncertain who (except for Nightcrawler) is fielding and who is acting as a baserunner. Most of the faces are indistinct. In trying to use the internet to determine exactly who are the various players depicted here, I found that I am not alone in my criticism of the baseball scene in this issue. Nonetheless, I'll try my best. Acting as umpire is Eye-Boy, whose many eyes make him ideal for the role. In the field for the first depicted batter (and assuming that they are all there as fielders):

Pitcher Rachel Grey Now using the code-name "Prestige."
Catcher Hellion? The catcher appears to be a Caucasian male with grayish hair; I don't know of any contemporary active X-Men who fit that description, but the black-haired Hellion had, at that time, been recently cured of the disease caused by the Terrigen mist, and he is not actively a member of some other team, so maybe it's him, mis-colored.
First base Storm
Second Base Jubilee? A female with short, spiky black hair seen only from the back. Normally, her hair is depicted as a bit longer, but no other X-Men of the era fit better.
Shortstop Greymalkin A gray-skinned two hundred year old mutant who had been (attemptedly) murdered by his father for being gay and buried (unkowingly) alive, saved by the emergence of his mutant powers. His family owned the property on which the X-Mansion was originally situated before the Xavier family owned it, and the street on which the mansion was located bears that name. He has not been portrayed in any live-action media.
Third Base Kid Omega Originally a student of the Xavier school with a rebellious attitude, he progressed to full-fledged sociopathy, but was later rehabilitated. Someone looking like him makes a brief cameo appearance in the Dark Phoenix movie.
Outfield? Nightcrawler

The batters seen, in order, are:

Colossus
Nightcrawler

Colossus hits the first pitch Rachel is shown throwing, a solid line drive that Nightcrawler (in the field) teleports to catch (prompting Colossus to complain that this was supposed to be a no-powers game). Nightcrawler then comes in from the field and takes a turn at bat. Storm also leaves the field, and Colossus takes up a position in the field, and the other fielders (judging from the colors of their outfits) have moved around from their initial positions. Nightcrawler is then seen to make contact on the next pitch, but we don't know the outcome of that particular swing.

And now...the rest of the story

The baseball scene ends with Kitty, sitting in the bleachers, being presented by a New York City employee with a huge bill for the Central Park real estate the mansion now occupies.

The end result of the whole Inhumans push by Marvel/Disney, though, didn't end very well. Originally announced to be featured in a "Phase Three" Marvel Cinematic Universe film, the story was later downgraded to an 8-episode television mini-series which ended up being panned by critics. Unable to acceptably replace the mutant race in the MCU with one whose license they already held, Disney just went ahead and bought Fox, allowing mutants and the X-Men to join their already-successful franchise.

Post Script

I am also aware of baseball being played in several issues of Ultimate X-Men, a series set in an alternate universe (best known as the home universe of Miles Morales, the young Spider-Man in the Spider-Verse animated film). Though true to the spirit of the X-Men concept, the history of the roster is different (owing more to the X-Men movies, which were the popular image of the X-Men at that point in time, than to the mainstream Marvel Universe). This article is long enough already, thus, I have decided to X-clude those issues. I have X-pended an X-tremely large amount of time and energy on this one, and I find myself X-hausted.

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