In my opinion, one of the more memorable Simpson’s episodes of the early (read: good) years was Homer at the Bat. It was a third season episode in which the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team, led by Homer and his “Wonder bat,” make the championship game. Mr. Burns makes a $1,000,000 bet vs. the other team owner, and then hires Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey, Jr., Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith, José Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry and Mike Scioscia as ringers (after he learns that his first choice for big-leaguers were all retired or dead). Everyone but Strawberry is somehow incapacitated, forcing Burns to use mostly his original team anyway.
This, I knew. What I didn’t know was all the other interesting facts about the episode.
This episode took a long time to make. The voices of the baseball players took 6 months to record. Each recorded their parts whenever they were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers or California Angels (to be close to the studio). Per wiki, “Each player recorded their part in roughly five minutes and spent the next hour writing autographs for the staff.”
Most players were reported as being very friendly and cooperative, except for Ken Griffey Jr who didn’t understand the line, “There is a party in my mouth, and everyone’s invited” and Jose Conseco, who was intimidating and made the writers rewrite his part to make him as heroic as possible.
This was the first new episode of the Simpson’s to win the time slot vs. a new episode of The Cosby Show.
Also, sadly, there are at least 2 incidents where people claimed to have learned how to do the Heimlich maneuver, and later saved someone life, thanks to a poster describing it appearing in this episode.
As a recap, here are the baseball celebrities appearing in the episode, and what happened to them:
- Roger Clemens is made hypnotized to think he is a chicken.
- Wade Boggs is knocked unconscious by Barney at Moe’s Tavern in a argument over the greatest British prime minister of all time.
- Ken Griffey Jr. overdoses on nerve tonic resulting in gigantism.
- Steve Sax is arrested by Wiggim for every unsolved crime in New York City.
- Ozzie Smith disappears in the “Springfield Mystery Spot.”
- Jose Canseco is rescuing a woman and her possessions from a house fire.
- Don Mattingly is kicked off the team by Mr. Burns due to his sideburns (that don’t exist).
- Mike Scioscia is hospitalized due to radiation poisoning from working in the plant.
- Darryl Strawberry makes it to the game, taking Homer’s position on the field. At the end, Burns takes him out of the game, and puts in Homer, who is subsequently beaned in the head, giving the team the game-winning “run.”
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