Some familiar baseball film plots take over the first half of this week’s Hailey’s On It! On Disney Channel before some of magic’s biggest secrets are revealed in the latter half of the episode.
The Umpire Strikes Back
Have you ever seen Rookie Of The Year? If yes, then go ahead and skip to the next half of this episode as this story is very much the same plot as that movie, with the addition that Hailey has the goal of catching a foul ball at the Oceanside Barnacles baseball game. That is today’s to-do list item, and things are looking bleak.
That is, until Scott mentions his recent shoulder surgery. After too much fist bumping he suffered an injury and is now well on his way to recovery. But when he ends up helping peanuts reach someone in the crowd with an amazing throwing arm, his new skills are locked in. The operation must have tightened the tendons in his arm, and now he is chucking peanut bags at over 90 mph.
We know this because the coach of the Barnacles clocked the speed using a radar and has now approached Scott to pitch for the time. Something that he (and the viewers) knows is quite unorthodox, and even acknowledges its similarity to something out of a movie.
Scott has one condition – Hailey has to be his catcher. This way, she has a higher chance of catching a foul ball, as her list dictates that she must do.
However, as they warm up, they realize that Scott’s very limited attention span will not allow him to focus on throwing the ball where he needs to. Hailey decides to loan him her pair of spare glasses. With his inability to look elsewhere, he’d have to focus on Hailey's mitt.
Hailey has the chance to catch the foul thanks to an errant hit, but fails. While Scott was excited thinking that she was going to be able to, he runs into the Umpire and inadvertently breaks Hailey’s glasses. Hailey gives up her own glasses to Scott so they can continue the game, knowing that now it will be even harder for her to see the foul ball she needs to catch. Luckily, when the chance occurs, she sees three of the baseballs going into the sky and picks one to focus on. Sure, it’s the wrong one, but her mask catches it in between the bars. The umpire makes the call, and Hailey’s watch starts beeping, marking her success.
Now that they’ve completed their task, Scott and Hailey decide to leave the game, even though they are in the middle of the 6th inning.
Afterward, they decide to wrap up on where everyone in the episode ended up, with those characters fading into the distance. Ever see The Sandlot? It’s a lot like that.
Magician Impossible
All her life, Hailey has loved the work of a magician in town and is ready to see her at Oceanside’s Magic Palace. But Babs the magician is scaling back on some of her most impressive magic tracks. Why? Turns out, someone is breaking the magician’s code and revealing all the secrets to her tricks on social media.
Coincidentally, AC is in the crowd for most of these performances. After all, his parents are major sponsors of the Magic Palace, so he gets to attend all the shows. Yes, that’s pretty much it right there, isn’t it. Given the history of the show and all. However, they can’t prove it.
In order to complete tonight’s task on Hailey’s list, Babs has to complete the trick, but refuses considering her secrets will be revealed. Even they seem to know it’s AC doing it, but can’t say anything since his parents are forking over all the money, as well as installing different things around the theater, including a number of ceiling fans.
They have to catch him in the act, so they channel Scott’s past doing magic tricks, but he refuses considering he had an accident when he was younger where he made a vending machine disappear but failed to make it reappear. Eventually, Scott takes the stage and performs some tricks with Beta, and sure enough a live stream begins on social media, ready to reveal the secrets.
Looking at AC, he is sitting at his table with his phone, and that is not where the stream is coming from. However, after a bit of analysis, Hailey determines where the stream is coming from, and the jig is up. On stage, Hailey calls out AC and it seems the streams are coming from cameras higher up, embedded in the fans that AC’s family installed. He is controlling them from his phone. Can’t prove it without the phone though right? Scott uses some of his magical abilities and also reveals that he has AC’s phone now too. This all happens after he brings back Beta after making him disappear, reappearing inside the vending machine he made disappear so long ago.
This episode of Hailey’s On It! Is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app. You can catch up with earlier episodes on Disney+.