It’s been six years since Fox canceled Pitch after one season, but Mark Paul Gosselaar can’t forget about how it almost made him want to give up on Hollywood.
During a Saved by the Bell panel at ’90s Con Tampa Sunday, Gosselaar recalled how he felt when Fox axed the Kylie Bunbury starrer that revolved around the first woman to play (and pitch!) for the majors.
“I wanted to quit the industry after that ended,” Gosselaar, who played catcher Mike Lawson in the drama from Dan Fogelman and Kevin Falls. “That’s one of those, you feel like in your lifetime you’re not going to be handed opportunities like that, so for that to pass in the fashion that it did it was sort of a gut punch. That’s a role though, that I don’t make light of it, but I had to go therapy with my wife.”
Gosselaar went on to say the drama filmed 30 minutes from his house, so he was able to get home quickly to see his family. He admits, however, that he’d forget to leave catcher role on set.
“I’d come in through that front door and like my wife said in therapy sessions, ‘That’s not the guy I married,’ ” Gosselaar said. “And you’re playing this guy and then the next day, you have to jump right into that. It is actually really difficult to go back and forth, especially when you have kids.”
Pitch earned some of the 2016-17 season’s strongest reviews when it debuted. Sadly, it never drew a large enough viewership — averaging 3 million viewers and a 0.8 in 18-49.