Mark-Paul Gosselaar “Wanted To Quit The Industry” After His 2016 Sports Drama ‘Pitch’ Struck Out After One Season

While Mark-Paul Gosselaar‘s career was launched and solidified by Saved by the Bell, he revealed that he was pretty torn up about his 2016 sports drama Pitch striking out after just one season on FOX.

At 90s Con Tamp this past weekend, Gosselaar told People that he “wanted to quit the industry” following the show’s cancellation.

“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,” he shared. “That’s a role though, that I don’t make light of it, but I had to go [to] therapy with my wife.”

The series, which followed the San Diego Padres welcoming the fictional first female MLB player Genevieve “Ginny” Baker (Kylie Bunbury) to their team, aired ten episodes on FOX. According to Entertainment Weekly, the show received rave reviews — including a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes — but unfortunately didn’t make the cut for FOX’s TV lineup the following year.

Gosselaar, who played Padres catcher Mike Lawson, acknowledged a downside to filming the series, admitting that he tended to bring his “really aggressive baseball player” on-screen persona home with him.

“I’d come in through that front door and like my wife said in therapy sessions, ‘That’s not the guy I married,'” Gosselaar explained. “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.”

While he noted that he “consider[s him]self a husband first, a family guy second and an actor third,” Gosselaar highlighted his role as Paul Johnson on Mixed-ish — a spinoff of Black-ish which aired for two seasons on ABC — that he believed “actually made [him] a better father.”

“My son just painted on the walls — on Mixed-ish, we celebrated it,” he continued. “So it works both ways.”

While he has since weathered other TV cancelations — including the 2020 Saved by The Bell reboot — he has made some notable appearances, including a cameo in a Season 3 episode of Barry and a starring role in Will Trent, an ABC series based on Karin Slaughter’s book series.

In other words, Gosselaar has seemed to follow in the words of baseball icon Babe Ruth: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

Episodes from Season 1 of Pitch are available to purchase on Prime Video.