Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer at the Bat With Dave Schilling

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

We welcome back podcaster/writer Dave Schilling--check out his recent LA Times journalism--as we dig into the show's iconic tribute to the national pastime! Yes, we're examining Homer's magical ascent to the top of local softball, all to be undone by Mr. Burns' cheating of hiring nine different ringers. Learn about the making of this fan favorite, explanations of some of the deeper baseball references, and tons more. So shave those sideburns and join us for this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, proudly sponsored by the American Hypnotical Association. I'm one of your hosts, the Nerv Tonic Junkie, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons.

Who is here with me today, as always? It's Henry Gilbert, and after this, I'm headed to the mystery spot. And on the line we have... Dave Schilling? And this week's episode is Homer at the Bat. Daryl! Daryl! Daryl! Daryl! Children, that's not very nice. This week's episode originally aired on February 20th, 1992, And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day

In real world history Oh my god Oh boy, Bobby H.W. Bush beats Pat Buchanan in the GOP primary While Paul Songis is ahead of Bill Clinton The Mets grade Keith Hernandez appears on Seinfeld. And Stopper by Mom will shoot Can't Beat Wayne's World at the box office.

Very cool. This is the first time in history that joking about JFK was funny. Right? It's the JFK parody episode. The spitting on Keith Hernandez ones back into the light. Yes, because they were able to parody it via the film parody bit. So, yeah, it's funny that this week not just the Simpsons had on their own cavalcade of famous players, but they also got on a Met's Great on Seinfeld with Keith Hernandez.

Yes. And, yeah, we're on the road to the 1992 election at this moment. You know what? Paul Songus, a fun name I haven't heard in a while. For whatever reason, when I hear that name, I hear Al Franken saying it. Yeah, it does sound like something you'd hear on SNL. Could you believe there was a time where he would be the Democratic leader and not Bill Clinton? It's crazy to imagine.

We're still putting up with Bill Clinton. What is that guy just going to go away? Isn't it weird? We've seen enough. Yeah. This is weird. I thought we all agreed that like, well, yeah, no more Bill Clinton. It's fine.

Just go away. We won't talk about you anymore. But nope. Here's my pitch. You get to be president for eight years and then you just get retired. You go to an island and all the ex-presidents live on an island, and they have no connection to the outside world. They can't be on TV. Maybe they can send some emails here and there,

but as far as we're concerned, they're gone. They're on Fuckboy Island or something, and they go away. And we get to watch them and place bets on their battles that we force them into. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. You think Jimmy Carter looks bad now? I mean, he'd probably be the one to survive he can build a house for himself yeah i can live off of peanuts yeah all those other guys they were just lawyers before they became president like he can build shit yeah absolutely farmer strength uh and you stop my mom will shoot

really just a punch line of a of a thing it's not no nobody liked it was all about how stallone is making a bunch of bad movies these days and and how wayne's world what a big deal now stallone on top again with his uh tulsa king series as in the sheridan verse oh he's doing that yes yeah i'm so tulsa king horny right now thinking about it this movie had no idea it would help fuel the bad movie podcast industry in about 20 years oh yes yeah so many podcast every bad movie podcast has to do the stopper my mom will shoot episode that's i think there's probably like seven stopper my mom will shoot jokes just in one episode of the critic that's true with such an easy you know it's harder for shows to make fun of shows like the critic to exist now i bet because

you can't make fun of a movie for being just a bad movie anymore it's like also because everybody's friends with somebody in hollywood so like i can't imagine them being that direct and mean about a movie these days this this was it did feel like an 80s movie because it was a buddy cop movie but the buddy was a mother it was estelle getty from the golden girls her only attempted box office uh at the crossing over into film yeah i listen i i think you know the idea of putting a firearm in estelle getty's hands is funny so i'm not going to complain about the premise. The execution maybe wasn't so great. If she fired a gun, wouldn't her arm just like break every bone?

The problem was on Golden Girl, she was playing 20 years older than she actually was. In this movie, she's playing her actual age. It's like, no, push it to like 80s. I want to see this woman with like a walker with the tennis balls on the bottom well just like a gun tape to it stallone might have been uh sensitive about that because that would make him older by proxy the older you make his mom maybe maybe he's adopted i mean she played i can imagine her being his mom because she's a very italian mom in golden girls so So it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, Dave, you're a Seinfeld fan.

You remember that Keith Hernandez episode well? One of the greats. Yeah. I mean, the whole spitting parody was really, really funny at the time when I was just learning about the fact that the president was assassinated. I was a child back then. And I was like, whoa, this happened. That's too bad for him. What a mess

to clean up. We only learned about it through television parodies. I think I only got the JFK parody after seeing the critics JFK parody with back and to the left. Repeated a lot. And to the left. That's not even a joke. There's no joke in that segment.

He says it over and over again. That's the joke. There's no joke in that segment. He says it over and over again and that's the joke. There's no punchline to that. I guess it was like the first Family Guy joke to ever be told on television, which is just saying something over and over again until it becomes annoying and then it becomes funny and then it becomes annoying

again. Family Guy owes more to Critic than Simpsons even, I think. I agree. i think also we're through the looking glass people is from jfk as well is that correct yeah i think you're right yeah i think that's said by rooker in the movie maybe or no i think it's just a line by costner what am i saying but oh also yeah the keith hernandez episode i think they even have a joke in it about how isn't way night in jfk and so they joke with him about how is he they're mocking a movie he's in wayne knight was in everything back then he was in jurassic park he was in basic

instinct he was a very busy character actor for a long time before seinfeld made him a pop culture icon i love if people try to look up the upskirt scene from Basic Instinct that the very next shot you see after the main event is the sweaty face of Wayne Knight. Yes. He's salivating like when the Domino's pizza tracker says, my guy is on his way. I mean, this is a true story. Steven Spielberg saw that and he's like, that's my guy. This clammy guy i'm gonna make you a star it really happened that way he saw a basic instinct he's like this is my dennis nedry

i like that that's the takeaway from that scene everything else uh you know what that's his window dressing but that man i must have him in the film well spielberg has admitted to never getting high before i think he's never gotten horny before either. He's just too committed to making movies. I saw The Fablemans. He's very horny. His horniness is too locked up in his hot mom, though. I think that's his problem. Oh, yeah. It is a little Oedipal, that movie, don't you think?

Just a smidge? Just a little bit. When he's filming his mom in her see-through nightie in between his father and her lover, I think. Okay, well, I'm just learning he learned how to become horny at age 80. That's why Spielberg hides it. He's scared of it. That's why these evil women in Spielberg movies are going to steal.

Anyway. Joining us today, Dave Schilling is back on the show. He was last with us on Hungry, Hungry Homer. Also about baseball. Yes, but this one's about softball, Henry, remember? Oh, yes, yeah. Even though the sound of the bat hitting the ball sounds like a baseball. Yeah, the normally great Simpsons

sound designers were using the crack of the bat on a baseball, not a softball. And is Roger Clemens throwing underhand? I don't think so. That's how you do it in softball. That's true. Also, nobody really uses wooden bats in softball. It's all aluminum Also, nobody really uses wooden bats in softball. It's all aluminum.

I didn't know that. The Simpsons fucked up! Well, then the entire Wonder Bats storyline makes no sense in this episode. None at all, folks. None at all. Well, yes, Dave, were you a baseball-loving child when this episode first aired? I was. I was the kind of kid who had like the book of records

like all the records of baseball history in this giant tome this is before of course wikipedia allowed you to to just look that up on your phone and i would just pour through all the records and think about ted williams and how no one will ever hit 400 in the regular season again the cal ripken juniors uh streak but records in baseball were such a big deal it's a it's a it's a it's a numbers nerds wet dream really just like all the statistics and i was obsessed with statistics and and now i hate math i hate numbers i can't stand it it's the nerdiest of all the major american sports for sure yeah it is yeah for me uh i think i mentioned this last time we talked about this episode uh this was this is all i know about

baseball are these guys and that's that's basically it like this is my only connection to the sport of baseball that sounds funny this was also like a huge time for baseball and pop culture and i think that's why you saw keith hernandez oninfeld or all the guest stars on this episode of The Simpsons is baseball was maybe more popular than basketball and football for a couple years there. Ken Griffey Jr. was such a superstar and such a pop culture icon. And that doesn't really feel like it's the case anymore. And so the people who do love baseball today are the nerds. Like any baseball fan that I know is as dorky as me about baseball. It's not cool. It's not hip. It's not sexy. It's old timey and for people who like to sit

outside for three or four hours drinking warm beer and eating peanuts. The last time I saw a full baseball game i got a sunburn i was not ready for it it took years off your life you mentioned old timey dave this episode written by john schwartzwelder a guy who loves old timey stuff loves baseball at this point also on the staff is jeff martin he also loves baseball he writes the talk in softball parody at the end of this episode and also he would go on to make two baseball related sitcoms that's right not just one yeah one was called i think hardball for fox it lasted like six episodes and one was called listen up and it was with jason alexander and it was him as a sports broadcaster so jeff martin made two

sports related uh sitcoms after this he loves sports and he loves baseball in particular uh listen up was uh based on the life of espn uh broadcaster former washington post journalist tony kornheiser oh i didn't know that i he was playing tony kornheiser yeah i was i remember watching at least one episode of that because it was you know the post seinfeld thing what's what's jason alexander gonna do now after seinfeld but i don't think sports are intrinsically funny on a long-term basis like you can do a sports episode of the Simpsons or Seinfeld or Friends or whatever but as the setting for a sitcom I think there's a limited number of of activities that you can do you want to show the

game all the time but the game isn't funny plus you know also it's got to be really hard to film baseball games on a tv budget as well like especially back then you know now you can use all kinds of computer programs to create a full stadium like with the the lakers show on hbo they use a smattering of extras in the you know the lower bowl and then they build out the rest of the arena with whatever CGI that they have. But you couldn't do that back then. You had to just shoot really close or move extras from one section to the next. And that worked great in Major League. I love Major League. Do that every week. Good luck doing that every week. When this aired was a at the the peak of baseball fandom i would ever have in my life which is not even that big of a fan but i lived in marietta georgia a suburb

of atlanta and this was when the atlanta braves were doing very well uh they won the national league championship in the in a exciting game seven and then they would lose to the the twins in game seven which was my first childhood like sports heartbreak i ever felt and then after that i think too so i had just gone through all that up to the uh airing of this episode and plus at least as far as how they were advertised to children i think the most famous baseball player to me thanks to video games would have been Bo Jackson uh the second most famous would be the Bash Brothers of Jose Canseco and Mark McGuire so when Canseco was in this is like oh I know who that is this taught me the names of all the other players pretty much yeah I always thought it was Griffey or Barry Bonds who of course played on that Pirates team

that lost in that NLCS to the Braves when Sid Bream scored on a slide into home that's one of the great moments in baseball history I think is that Sid Bream slide I thought as a kid like oh they'll be in the World Series all the time but then once we we moved away from Atlanta by the time they won the big one unfortunately but and yeah some some behind the scenes details on this and this is one of the most famous episodes of the simpsons like ever i think uh yeah i mean i like to be critical of my own nostalgia and i went to simpsons trivia back in september uh months ago and before we do trivia they show the episodes and this one started up and i'm like hmm is this really going to be that good is this really one of the best and then when it was over i was like yeah it is so we actually i actually judged my nostalgia and it's correct it's shockingly funny i don't think

i've i don't think i've been on uh this this podcast for an episode that's bad but this one is just on another level i think there was an av club or a vulture oral oral history of just this episode and how they got all the the guys to to agree to be in the show oh yeah yeah it's i don't know why it's so famous though or why it's so iconic i mean it was it sets a template for the show that they would follow for up to today of how they get famous people in it how they write famous people to interact with the family sometimes the show can be a little too into famous people i think but the success of this episode both ratings wise and critically received i can see why they kept chasing like al jean in particular loves this episode this is one

of his he said it many times one of his most liked episodes one thing that troubles me about this or doesn't trouble me but is interesting about this episode is that it has almost nothing for the rest of the family to do yeah it actually pissed off barely there yeah it pissed off all the actors uh that very fact yeah yeah i mean uh it's easy to say oh it's funny and then we we're gonna say that a lot throughout this episode but i think what makes it funny is i noticed that towards the end of season three a lot of the show is just like a series of 20 second scenes and in this one like every new scene is about a different character so it's just like it's constantly entertaining with so many different stories and it is a it is a fun juggling act to see them tell all of these stories at once it's not just the star fucking it's also like this is a writing challenge can we tie up all

these stories and like every baseball player gets an origin they suffer a misfortune then we find out what happens to them and it's like that's a lot of stories to tell in 22 minutes yeah yeah and a good use of the the supporting characters you know there's something for Barney to do that's important uh Wiggum has a big part to play in this episode I think Apu shows up for like a hot second this is really a burns episode first and foremost this is a super great mr burns episode i mean swartz welder is one of the best writers for burns too there there is in the show yeah i uh so the the short version of the history is it's this all started as sam simon's idea that's that's who gene and reese the showrunners of this season credited to him and he was like

this is how easy it'll be guys we'll find nine famous players and when their teams come to los angeles to play the late uh the dodgers or the angels then we'll record with them and it'll just be you know a series of going through that's why none of the guys recorded together except for clemens and boggs i believe because they're both uh we're on the red socks at the time and we're in town for that this was from mike reese's book there's four names they've said of guys who turned them down nolan ryan uh ryan sandberg ricky henderson and barry bonds all four of them are listed as guys who said no four guys with no sense of humor they could have been about baseball you know how boring all

four of the well ricky henderson was fun yeah i don't think he had a sense of humor about himself ryan sandberg nolan ryan barry bonds are famously just you know kind of dull or like bonds actively cruel to people yeah i don't think he'd they talk enough about the humorlessness of uh of one of the actors in this i feel like bonds would have been even more of a problem i think but oh yeah oh yeah and you know what else if barry bonds was in this episode they have to put an asterisk next to it hey i get it i get that one uh other other news related this episode other preliminary stuff so uh we're at the end of the show's rivalry with the cosby show this is the first time the simpsons beat the cosby show in the same time slot and contrary to what

aljean says on the commentary this was a new episode on the commentary he says it was a rerun they beat a new cosby show uh the episode is called claire's reunion in season eight and the wikipedia synopsis is claire hosts a group of hillman college alumni who have gathered to plan a testimonial for a much-loved professor while trying to come up with a way to describe this colorful woman claire and her friends reminisce about their fun-filled college days meanwhile olivia pursues cliff to get a beauty makeover in her new hair salon notes to everyone out there the show will be over in four episodes oh wow this is it's near the end you know what's funny to me is uh back when the simpsons and cosby show were on at the same time, America was obsessed with how terrible of an influence Homer Simpson was on the families of America, on the children of America, and Bart by proxy.

And wasn't Cliff Huxtable such a great guy? What a model dad. And it's so good that people are watching this show where a good father can show up every episode and do the right thing. Well, now I would say Homer Simpson is a model father compared to Bill Cosby. Yeah, it's funny that on the commentary, they're recorded in like the early aughts. And, you know, Cosby is still like, you know, a beloved figure. And they're like, well, we didn't have anything against Bill Cosby, of course. It was really the network. But their their tune has changed there's no respect

anymore for cosby the reverence is gone yeah rightfully so it's also funny in mike reese's book uh he says it a little on the commentary too but in his book he's even more clear of like he was the one guy who didn't give a shit about baseball and he says that he or sports in general and he joked that like he was often directing the the sports stars because he wasn't starstruck by them though he he was often intimidated by their size he's a small man who also doesn't care about baseball as rich more he was supposed to direct this jim reardon got uh lisa the greek so they traded actually yeah so jim reardon gets this and Rich Moore is on Lisa the Greek.

Which shows almost no football actually being played. Yeah. And one other behind the scenes thing that is negative about it is that they name them themselves. They don't say. They're not vague about it. Harry Shearer and Julie Kavner hated this episode. They hate, hate, hated it.

They thought it wasn't funny. They didn't like that it focused on the guest stars it was a terrible table read where nobody laughed i think it was also because they never did two table reads in one day and this was the second and every every joke just hit a dead silent wall too i mean i would guess at a table read you're just like you're the stars and you're just sitting there forever for waiting for lines to be said by the famous people who aren't there to say the lines because they haven't been recorded yet.

I don't know if you guys have ever been to one, but they are a slog. And sometimes now, I don't know if this was the case back then, but people will call in to read their lines. So you're listening not only to the people at the table, but you're also listening to people on a speakerphone. And it's just like yeah it could be funny but the room isn't it's half like staff members who are terrified of their episode being bad and the other half is like now friends of friends or like tourists or contest

winners it's like a circus so yeah i can imagine even back in season three people are just like fuck enough of this at one point at one point they let podcasters in yeah we we did get to go to one once oh good i'm glad i'm glad you guys yeah it's a fun experience but for the talent and for the for the crew it seems quite grueling yeah and we we assume that uh the table reads were over in person but the new disney president is like everyone's coming back to work four days a week yeah they're gonna have to stock back up on snacks at the uh the studio now yeah all the writers yeah like uh julie cavner harry sheer hated this episode they especially hated the sideburns joke like what does this even mean like the joke i mean the joke should

be obvious to anyone out there yeah but come on it's incredibly funny i love that joke yeah i the fallout of this would be for instance julie cavner a year later when they do crusty get canceled basically a sequel to this episode in style barge doesn't speak in that episode there's no she's not in it meanwhile harry sheer just complained to complain about it so much about this episode in particular that during one of harry shearer's many public issues with re-signing on to the series in 2004 al gene named uh like he was like harry shearer's complaining too much like and he even said harry shearer hated this episode and it's one of the best ever like he al gee named this one by name as an episode that he think harry shearer was too mean to so i I believe to this day, still a sticking point, especially with Harry Shearer,

that he did not like this episode. I do think you have to have some semblance of affection for baseball and understand some of the cultural references that are subtle. Like the sideburns thing does have a real world analog. George Steinbrenner and the Yankees organization famously hates facial hair and they don't want people to have beards. And so if you go to the Yankees and

you've had a beard your whole career, you got to shave it off. And you see a lot of people go from the Yankees to another team and they've got a beard because now they can do it. And I think Mattingly says something about preferring um stein burns to steinbrenner or something i forget what what it is yeah that's something you wouldn't know why it's funny it's just a non-sequitur unless you kind of understand the weird dress code related to baseball and how old-fashioned it can be and and burns being this old-fashioned character of course he loves baseball and his little his outfit where he's got his his pants up and he's got the big baggy baggy pants and the zephyrs funny the

zephyrs not a real team uh one one other uh fun fact before we start here so you'll notice at the end of the episode marsha wallace uh edna krabappel is credited you might be wondering well where's edna krabappel she was supposed to be in this episode. Her lines were recorded, animation was done. There was going to be a Bull Durham parody where she would seduce Jose Canseco. Well, it turns out Jose Canseco's furious wife wanted this change, and at great expense, they did change it at the last minute. And speaking of Jose Canseco and his wife, here's what happened a week before the episode aired. On February 13th, 1992, Canseco was charged with aggravated battery for ramming his porsche into a bmw driven by his then wife after a verbal altercation and on march 19th he pleaded not guilty to the charges so a week before this

airs he has an altercation with his wife that's insane yeah and this episode makes him look like a great guy i know yeah so it's like it's like they're being very passive-aggressive because when they got carson on the show in crusty gets canceled they wanted to make him a bum but he turned it down so they made him the strongest man in the world so i feel like a similar thing is happening a year earlier this this tells you if you watch a show where they treat the guest star too nicely that that is you can sometimes be a backhanded insult of saying like yeah we we didn't make them a jerk because they didn't want to have fun and be a jerk they were they actually are a jerk so we can't write them as a jerk yeah save this baby oh boy yeah which is the total opposite of a person that

jose can say go is based on everything he's done the last 30 years uh he has a real like uh who is the the mountie the bullwinkle mountie dudley do right he's like i'll save your baby it's such a joke it's so funny i i will say too there's a there's a 25th anniversary fake documentary that made with the major league baseball it's like a parody of ken's burn style and it was done as part of like they actually celebrated the the episode's 25th anniversary at Cooperstown it has everybody but Daryl Strawberry back uh to talk about it but the whole joke is that they treat it like it was real and they're like oh yeah when I came to Springfield and blah blah blah it's okay though you don't need to watch it now because it

was directed by Morgan Spurlock and he's canceled. And it's got Dr. Oz and Dr. Drew in it for funny lines. You know, it's just, you're just going to be cringing a lot watching it. I mean, it's fine. I couldn't make it through. It's just a little too cutesy-poo. And it also adds to the, like, the storytelling of the show in a negative way for me, where they interview, like, Wiggum and Apu and other people. No one voiced by Julie Kavner or Harry dink or um terry sheer by the way yeah and uh you find out like oh wiggum gave

homer the idea to hold sheet metal over his head just like did i need to know this yeah it's the they i'll tell you what i thought was the cutest in joke is that nick offerman appears multiple times playing other celebrities but he also plays john swartzwalder in it which i thought is funny because his parks and rec character is kind of john swartzwalder as well the simpsons will be right back thursday it's a grand slam simpsons when hom's softball team signs Jose Canseco. I get $50,000 to play one game? Well, it's a pay cut, but what's the hate?

Don Mattingly. Mattingly, give me the new sideburns. What sideburns? You heard me, hippie. Steve Sachs. Don't I at least get to call my lawyer? You watch too many movies, Sachs. Buck them. And many more of your favorite all-stars.

Homer, tell me when your father stopped scratching himself. The Simpsons, part of the Fox Summer Games, Thursday. Kids, we'll tell you, Mom. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level

to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Hey everybody, welcome to the break and chug a beer if you're at the top of the inning and a big thank you to our guest this week dave schilling awesome to have him back to talk about sports some

more if you enjoy dave check out everything he's up to on twitter at dave underscore schilling as well as all the stuff he's been doing at the la times lately it's a lot of great work thanks so much again dave and if you're a fan of great work. Thanks so much again, Dave. And if you're a fan of this podcast, please know that you can support us and help us keep it going if you go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. This is me and Bob's full-time job, and we're only able to do it thanks to $5 and up subscribers at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.

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aside uh thanks to this like heimlich maneuver chart at least two people have seen this and because of that we're able to stop someone from choking to death yeah there's there was an article in the 1992 orlando sentinel of a 10 yearold boy saying he saved his brother's life with the Heimlich maneuver when he was choking. And the kid said it was from this episode with the picture of the Heimlich maneuver. So this joke saved a life. Our lives. It's a gag of a guy coughing up an entire lobster. Yes.

I love that. I love that drawing. Also, when Homer finally coughs out his donut, it's like half of a donut or two thirds of one. But he does eat more like a duck. But this is when Homer learns about softball and he tries to tell everybody to sign up for it. Donuts. Hey, Homer, slow down. You're going to choke or something.

Don't tell me how to eat donuts. Hey, Homer's slow down. You're gonna choke or something. Don't tell me how do we choke it. Hey, Homer's choking again. Isn't there a first aid chart around here somewhere? Somebody scare him. That's what a hiccup. Hey, look at this. Sauceball starts this week. Sauceball?

Who's next? Eh, count me out. What's the matter with you guys? Homer, last year we were 2-28. Look, I know it wasn't our best season. Actually, it was. Well, this year's going to be different. Oh, yeah?

What makes you so damn sure? I have a secret weapon. Hey, he's been holding out on us, huh? What is that? A secret weapon. I wonder what it could be. They turn it down. They say say i love the line last year we were 228 look i know it wasn't our best season actually it was the bit here of homer trying to

tell everybody to sign up and he's got a secret weapon i love everybody imagining his secret weapon i think charlie's no sorry lenny's of the laser is the funniest one there are so many fun drawings in this episode in particular they're allowed to be a little more wild, but Lenny's very smug look as he's imagining people being burned to death with a laser is hilarious. That was an avatar of mine for like a decade. I love that smile on his face. Yeah, it's a great smile. We find out what Homer's secret is.

I love that Bart ruins the reveal before it happens, but Homer talks about his magic bat. Sheltering myself with a large piece of sheet metal, I ran for cover under the tallest tree I could find. Something told me this was a very special, very magical piece of wood that I could make a bed out of. I put my homemade football on hold

and set to work making the world's greatest bat. Homie, come to bed. Come on, go back to the garage. And here it is. Wow, how many home runs are you going to hit with that? Let's see, we play 30 games, 10 at-bats a game, 3,000. Homer's a little off there on his math, but you see, he is quite stupid. But this is the big part of the episode uh that bob watched a

whole movie i watched it too after bob did we're gonna have to derail this again i'm sorry uh but yes this is a slight parody of the natural i i think now we've forgotten movie and i think it's been forgotten because honestly it's not very good and i don't recommend you watch it if you want to see what the simpsons is parodying in The Natural, you can watch the first five minutes and the last five. You get the making of Wonderbat, and you get the smashing of the light fixtures with the home run, and that's essentially what's happening here. But the pitch, I think, for The Natural is very interesting.

It's like this older man suddenly enters the major leagues. Where did he come from? What are his goals? What's his backstory? But the way the movie tells you this story is very boring because the first 25 minutes is him as a younger man he is sidelined by an assassin basically and then the movie resets and he is now 16 years older and entering the major leagues the thing the thing is like the movie tells you his backstory first if you had learned it throughout the course of this story it would have made the very flat uh character more interesting played by robert redford it's also a problem that when the movie begins robert redford is playing a 19 year old robert redford is 47 he looks like he's 63 the man loved the sun and then

16 years later he's 35 uh and obviously not looking, but it's a movie with a lot of problems. And the main issue is that Redford's character, there's like nothing going on. He's the perfect man. Yeah. And the issue is women sideline his career. This movie is basically pro no nut November. The first ever incel movie. Yes.

Because when he starts having sex with kim basinger uh his baseball game suffers yeah it's his essence is stolen by by this jezebel yeah i i mean they may and it's also like it's a evil horrible woman who steals his baseball ability too because she's a crazy person i guess who then just very neatly kills herself afterwards so it's like oh there's no no problem problems for for roy that yeah like the story behind any other character would be more interesting in this movie and the wonder bat thing is he makes wonder about out of the tree his dad died in front of his dad has a heart attack it's not even a major part of the movie it's just part of the prologue his dad has a heart attack while chopping wood lightning

strikes the tree he makes a bat out of the tree uh spoilers wonder uh wonder bat or wonder boy in the movie wonder bat's a better name for a bat not wonder boy uh the bat breaks uh towards in the final minutes of the movie and it's not even a big deal for him he's like i'll take another bat i guess okay well this happens in the episode though this bugs me is uh the pitch smashes the bat in half and homer does his his classic the yell he does and uh then the bat's back he's just got a bat again yeah what will you tape it together you put glue on there what's going on he's uh well you know in the movie i'm a little disturbed by how close how close roy is with thatboy. I think you're reading too much into that, Henry. But yeah, it's not a good movie.

No one references it except for the light shattering scene. And I think we've even stopped doing that. And there are better baseball movies. And really, you don't need to see the entire thing to know what they're referencing here. And I guess the one other thing I would add is that I think if you're watching this when it was new, it's eight years after the natural. Maybe you remember it. And when you first start watching it, you're like, oh, it's a natural parody. And I like how it misleads you into thinking that where Homer's story ends in the first act.

It's like Homer has a secret ability. Is it his magic bat or is he really talented? It doesn't matter at all. As soon as Burns enters, it's so great. That's what I love about it. It's kind of like the boxing episode where it's like, oh, Homer can take up his punishment he's gonna fight dredd eric tatum and then it becomes about um his his manager and and mo and all of that stuff it's not about homer's secret ability anymore much like wonder bat uh homer's skull breaks too very very easily

it's sorry i mean like just one more thing about it there are some good performances in it like wilford brimley is great as usually as he can you believe he's playing cantankerous old coot in this movie uh but when you watch any scene with him and redford remember he is only two years older than robert redford just think about that and that's you know after watching him my first thought was i want to see a joe don baker babe ruth movie you know that's him is the whammer the movie fills your head with ideas for other better movie starring characters you've seen so far well baseball movies often are either deeply conservative like the natural or almost subversive but the one thing that i think connects all baseball movies and

in some ways this episode too is that there's this magic spirituality to baseball people think that like there's there's a baseball god out there meddling in our affairs and uh Homer's uh mythical magical bat is kind of uh in line with that the idea that there's some sort of spirit out there in the in the natural god is quite real and it loves uh Roy the Redford character god is killing other players so Roy can take the starting line. God murdered his father, gave him a heart attack. And the last thing I'll say is like we're retroactively realizing other natural references. In Saturdays of Thunder, when Homer shows up at the soapbox derby race, he says, do it for your old man, boy. And he's up in the stands.

That's Glenn Close in The Natural. This saintly chaste woman who quietly has the main character's son and raises him off screen so the man can have a baseball career. That's what they're parodying in Saturdays at Thunder. So The Natural was really like in their minds, but I think it's just a forgotten movie.

You know what else? I want to see the movie about Barbara Hershey's baseball assassin. I don't want to see, like, yeah. She's killed twice, but the first time we see her, she's killed twice but the first time we see her she's killed twice already yeah she yeah it's uh i and of course aljean jokingly says one reason they do natural references all the time is because it's a fox movie and so they can

just use the music without having to pay extra for it i will say this is alf clausen doing a sound alike of randy newman's very good score for the movie but it's it's stillen doing a sound alike of Randy Newman's very good score for the movie, but it's still him doing a sound alike. So they're not actually using the natural score, but Alf Clausen doing an amazing job as always. But, you know, I had when this episode aired, my mom had to explain to me why Homer's very imitatable acts were bad. I'm like, no, no, no. Don't run with a sheet of metal over your head in lightning.

That's bad. But it worked out great. It did work out pretty good for homer there too yeah i i confused me as a kid that like homer's homemade football looks like how you would think homer who's bad at things would build a bat but he actually makes a very good bat like it actually looks like how a bat should look yeah uh sorry i have one more thing yeah so we all agree that field of dreams is probably the baseball movie because i just remembered the simpsons just referenced it again like last year oh yes yeah that's right i forgot they did that in that very good uh lisa boy scout episode didn't

they yeah it was to me it's bull durham that's the best baseball movie that or eight men out you know bull durham it it gets into the horniness of baseball it's about the sex of baseball instead of like sexless like field of dreams yeah it makes them play better when they have sex with susan sarandon see unlike what burn says in this episode that you stay away from uh well he just says stay away from soda not with colas yes so homer thinks he's going to do really good at softball but then we see our first game, and we learn that the really reason this is happening is drinking. This is why people do it. We know how to play softball.

They just explain every inning is the beer inning. Chug a beer. Okay, let's go over the ground rules. You can't leave first until you chug a beer. Any man scoring has to chug a beer. You have to chug a beer at the top of all unnumbered innings. Oh, and the fourth inning is the beer inning. Hey, we know how to play softball.

Play ball! Attention all units, attention all units. Armored car being robbed at 15... Turn off that damn radio! And the next man wants to hit the ball, too. And he does. And there he goes goes off in that direction and everyone is happy uh mom why don't you let me call the game that's all right dear i can do it

this is why the joke works so great later one of the ringers will win a game against any springfield player because they're just like fat drunk guys who kind of play softball okay they're not actually players i also love the animation of charlie's bat hitting uh lenny's leg that's a very funny animation too but yes uh as the game is being played against the cops wiggum is written as the better like he's better than the other cops telling him not to fire their guns off in celebration that's normally not what wiggum does yeah it's a different character is different characterization for Wiggum he's more kind of like a tyrant than he is a bumbler I do like that he just pulls himself away from the

instead of getting really mad he just goes like hey not bad Homer then presents uh well we also get to see Marge with her camcorder for like the one thing she gets to do in this episode which is film the game that's her one joke. But yes, we hear. I did not know what a jockstrap was when I first watched two. I had to ask a parent to explain. Have you worn one ever in your life, Henry? You know, that's maybe an extracurricular activities, but otherwise, no.

Deeply uncomfortable thing to wear. But Homer reveals what his magic pad is. Everybody thinks it's bullshit. They clearly haven't seen the natural. They don't know that Homer's pad is very important. And when Homer knocks out this picnicking father with his home run, is that a natural ref? Because in the movie, Roy Hobbs or whatever his name is, the main character, he can like attack you with baseballs. It's true. He can like laser target people with baseballs and attack them with them.

It's insane. He knocks when Robert Duvall's character, also who's a great character, I'd rather see a movie about him. Roy sees him in the stands and he's like, oh, hey, Mercy, you like this? And he easily hits home runs into the stands to almost hit Mercy. He hits a foul ball to hit him in the press room behind the plate. Yes, yeah. We're mad about The Natural, folks. It's, uh, we're mad about the natural folks. It's a bad movie. And I think that's why they make fun of it a lot.

Cause it's so silly and self-important family that gets hit or the husband that get hit. It's economical character designed by the animators. Cause they just pulled out the family that almost gets eaten by bears and call of the Simpsons. The one who goes like, come on bears uh eat me okay like that are they the camels uh no that's a different okay i mean they're season one style so they look a lot like the gamels meaning like how they don't design characters even by season three but no they're not not the gamble family but yes homer i also love homer taunting the cops

and they the cops are easily going to abuse their power this the cops are pretty evil in this episode yeah it's a cab before a cab was a cab i guess they i couldn't that honestly when they wrote jokes about those scenes in the 2017 parody doc i'm like how are you guys joking about the cops arresting people this much like bill de blasio joking about like hey maybe he did kill these people i was like what de blasio the this is not the right optics to joke about police overstepping their boundaries and uh anywho yeah the i i also just love homer taunting we cut back to home homer is being treated with respect by his family for the first time ever he tells him they bart and lisa they can both get me a beer which uh great line i like this very subtle joke in the baseball montage because the clips are separated by like the chugging of train wheels but they

never actually leave springfield yes everybody you're right it's like in the natural they have the winning and the losing montages and and they show you the train, everybody going everywhere. But you're right. Everybody's driving to the games here and just to the other side of Springfield. They just drove over to Fort Springfield. You have a very wrinkled Redford saying, Aw, shucks, I've never rode a train before. Golly jeepers.

Also, the bit about super slow motion homer's hit is really great just seeing his fat fly all around and between between this and i love lisa the simpsons have a vcr that lets you hear audio during slow motion yes yeah because you can hear ralph going when his heart breaks in half also marge's camcorder films at a very high frame rate uh despite being a regular like vhs camcorder i'm positing these that's the camcorder they stole from flanders absolutely you i think you're right i lost it so there's a few little jokes here of the road montage which they say on the commentary is from pride of the yankees but I mean like every baseball movie has the on the road montage because you can't play every game in real time or even show scenes from every game.

There's too many games of baseball played in a season. You need a lot of montages. I think that's true of every sports movie. Raging Bull had the montage that they rip off for the boxing episode. They've all got montages because it's boring to watch fake sports well not if it's pro wrestling of course okay well that's different we know it's fake uh there's also a babe ruth

reference which it just reminds of him pointing where he was gonna hit it but then he hits it he hits home run in the opposite direction also he he points after he hits but it was a weird i guess babe ruth has always been like a famous baseball player but there was like all this babe ruth stuff in our childhoods like the ken burns baseball doc is like has like four episodes on babe ruth it feels like and then there of course there was the babe and also sandlot is all about how awesome babe ruth is like we had a lot of babe ruth worship in our childhood we were eating baby ruths yeah well i think one of the reasons we don't have that anymore is a lot of those people who saw him play are dead and not to bring it down

but they died well all his records are broken to like multiple times over too i mean i do wonder if some of that Babe Ruth nostalgia in the early 90s was people trying to take back some honors from Hank Aaron or perhaps people bothered that Hank Aaron broke the record perhaps. I don't know. I think also just because there hasn't really been

a pop culture icon in baseball at that level. There've been a lot of great players and you think about all the great players that are in this episode. But how many of them do you really think about now? Even Ken Griffey Jr., as big of a deal as he was wearing his backwards baseball hat and stuff, he pales in comparison to Michael Jordan

or, you know, Tom Brady. All of these athletes in other sports that are pop culture icons. So Babe Ruth was maybe the last true super duper star i'm trying to think of of i mean obviously i don't watch current baseball but is there a giant like crossover star of current day baseball no the best baseball players are a guy um who i don't who's from Japan, and there's nothing wrong with being from Japan,

but America is a racist country. Sorry. They don't want to celebrate that. Yeah, Shohei Otani is a great baseball player, but he's not who people who watch baseball want to celebrate. And then there's Mike Trout, who also plays on the Angels, and he's boring, and he's like, I don't like to do interviews.

I don't want to be in the spotlight. I want to just toil away playing baseball. So they're just not charismatic the way that even Mark McGuire was or Sammy Sosa. And all those guys from the 90s, when baseball was still popular, have been implicated in the use of steroids. I mean, literally every player we loved was juicing back then in our childhood including roger clemens who's in this episode uh but not jose canseco right not him sorry i don't know why i laughed so hard jose canseco what a goofball that body pure canseco yeah he's

he had a little bit too much of that nerve tonic, I think. So, yes, during this sequence, too, there's another reference to deep baseball history with the piano leg. Yes, I have a quote about this. So who's got the piano leg? It's Norm Cash. Oh, sorry. It's Charlie. It's Charlie. Charlie has his sisters with him.

Yeah, this is a reference to Norm Cash taking a table leg to the plate in 1973 because nolan ryan was in the midst of hurling the second of his record seven no hitters ryan had struck out 17 when cash stepped to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the california angels leading six to nothing but instead of carrying a bat he had a table leg in his hands uh the umpire says you can't use that and he's like i got just as much a chance with this as i do with a bat eventually he had to get a regular bat but it was just a joke to show off like i have no chance of hitting like getting a hit i'm so screwed that's nice that you can have a little fun i love he brought he clearly brought that he's like all right you know what if he's if it's a no hitter by ninth inning i'm bringing it out i brought he's he's like uh yeah carrot top he's brought he's got it

ready to go that's a norm cash guy apparently a fun dude in into to tigers fans which i know al jean is a tie grew up a detroit tigers fan it's funny hearing about one of the other commentaries complained that like ken burns his documentary uh was way too favorable to new york teams especially and that he never never talks about the the tigers like their world series win or anything but yes the the springfield team they're doing great and we head to the springfield trade center which is just like basically the world trade center exists in springfield like it's it's crazy uh and we see the return of burns his rival i wish i don't believe he ever returned in any real role or capacity after this of aristotle amadopoulos yeah here a voice by dan castellana and his first appearance of course homer defined in this season uh john lovett i

want to say lovett is probably filming a league of their own at this point oh yeah a good baseball movie yeah great one he's uh like a rich, crazy Greek. Like, that's his thing. And also, yeah, you know, at his first appearance, that was their other major sports star suck job of Magic Johnson. Oh, yeah. Was he supposed to be a parody of Aristotle Onassis? Yes.

Yeah. It's all about Boomer's anger at Jackie Kennedy remarrying. Essentially, that's all it is. That's I think that's the Simpsons as a show. I think we've gotten to the core of it is it's really about boomers being mad about certain things. But here Burns makes a wager in our next clip. Good news, sir. The plant softball team has won again. If we beat Shelbyville next week, we capture the pennant.

Did you hear that, Harry? My boys need only to thump your tub and the title is ours. Ha! The gladiators from my power plant will crush your team like nine flabby grapes. I disagree. Would you care to bet a million dollars on that? No, if we're going to bet, why don't we make it interesting? What, a million dollars

isn't interesting to you? Oh, did you say a million? I'm sorry, my mind was elsewhere elsewhere i thought you would start with a small amount then we would bait each other and but you know how it goes yes certainly a million will be fine uh that's so great like burns is mad that he disrupted the natural drama of the scene he's just like no we're supposed to one-up each other in this. Like, oh, I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere. An early reference to tub thumping. Hey, yeah. This is years before Chumbawamba reminds us all of what tub thumping is. Yeah, thump your tub.

That's a great, great line for Burns there. And also, yes, it's so great that they hammer it home even more so. This million dollars is meaningless. Winning barely even matters to the actual. Like, there's no real stakes. In the natural, natural if they lose that game the team's shut down and or no the team is going to be sold to an evil mr burns like figure there but the stakes in this like and and dave you're you're a professional writer like stakes are very important in in most stories yeah not when john schwartzwelder is involved the lack of stakes is what makes this episode funny to me i mean i think it's it's parodying

the intense meaning that we we add to sports films even uh the idea of the team being bought by some evil person who cares the world will continue to spin on its axis. Go play for another team. Major League is a great baseball movie, as we've talked about already. But the stakes are the Indians. Sorry, they were called that back then, the Cleveland Indians. We're going to move to Miami. And it's like, who cares? Why not move to Miami?

It's a beautiful city. They'll be happy. Jake Taylor can get a tan. More of a tan, I guess. Tom Berenger was very tan in that movie um yeah Tom Berenger explodes his knees and ends his career to to save the team to win one game in the playoffs uh and then in the second one they're like oh yeah we lost in the ALCS so it was all for naught. The meta thing in this episode I love though because you think it's going to be Homer's story.

It's robbed from him immediately. And now it's like Homer, they could have won. They could have beat Shelbyville. Homer is actually good at this. But then his talents are eclipsed by professionals immediately.

Not just one, but nine. Nine. A full team of them. And also, I just saw Slapshot recently. It's pretty good. It's also about an evil team owner. But in this case,

the team wants to go to Florida. All right i don't blame them um it does seem like that's another thing that kind of punctures the expectation and and creates this sense of absurdity is homer is great but burns is so oblivious and does not care that homer is good and uh it's it's kind of depressing and existentially dreadful to be like great at something and then your boss the system will ignore it and not care poor homer sports movies need to have more evil owners these days i feel like you don't see it as much anymore i don't know it's almost too obvious that they're evil we just know already they're all evil so what's the what's the point i wonder though too you know maybe you can't get the official

license to make an nfl movie if you make it about how a team owner's evil maybe they don't play ball as much with you no pun intended or did no i intended it you know you intended it but yeah so we come back from break and this is is when Burns tells Smithers his plan. Smithers, I've been thinking. Is it wrong to cheat in order to win a million-dollar bet? Yeah, sir. Let me rephrase that. Is it wrong if I cheat in order to win a million-dollar bet?

No, sir. Who would you like killed? No, Smithers. I've decided to bring in a few ringers. Professional baseballers. We'll give them token jobs at the plant and have them play on our softball team.

Honus Wagner, Cap Anson, Mordecai Three Finger Brown. Uh, sir? What is it, Smithers? I'm afraid all those players have retired and, uh, passed on. In fact, your right fielder has been dead for 130 years. Damn nation! All right, find me some good players, living players. Scour the professional ranks, the American League,

the National League, the Negro Leagues. I'm on my way, sir. Oh, and Smithies. You have 24 hours. I love that he says, you know, is it wrong to cheat? And Smithers says, yes. He's like, let me rephrase that. Is it wrong if I cheat? He says, no, sir. Who would you like killed? Implying that Smithers, this is the most sociopathic Smithers has ever been, I think. And this lineup that Burns comes up with, these are all real people. You can read the names of the ones he doesn't mention.

And what I noticed, I'm not going to go over every one. I might go over a few, but they're actually in the positions they played in real life like john swartzwalder knew all these things before the internet and yes jim creighton has been dead for 130 years now 160 years because he passed away in 1862 so smithers was right down to the year that's amazing yeah he He was one of the first superstars of baseball, Jim Creighton. One of my favorite bits in that fake documentary from 2017 is they have on some baseball historian who goes like, I thought I was the only guy who had ever heard of Jim Creighton,

but I guess Mr. Burns has too. He was alive when that happened. I think John Swartzwater has boasted about owning the world's first baseball or something like that That's what other writers say Or at least he bought what someone called the world's first baseball That's a bit, that's an amazing bit There's a lot of Swartzwater tall tales though

Even on his official account he has shared pictures of him from days when I believe the story goes That on his birthday multiple times he has rented out baseball stadiums like official mlb things for the day and just gets to play on the field with his friends and he's he shared a photo of him like hitting uh hitting a ball during one of those those fun little birthday games which hey if i if i was a crazy millionaire like swartz welder i'd be doing stuff like that not specifically that but yeah unlike mr burns he would have someone killed i would be a fun millionaire yeah we would know how to spend that money that's right but jeff martin points it out but it is such a great joke that like ridiculous

overkill one ringer would win this game for them but burns replaces he wants nine players to replace the full team in every position also burns is so old that he does not know the negro leagues no longer exists uh that's again that one flew over my head as a child i did not know that then burns for honestly no reason gives smithers 24 hours like it's it's really just to torture smithers more uh so then the then begins our hiring of the ringers montage where we get to meet most of the players. I get $50,000 to play one game? That's right, Mr. Canseco. Well, it's a pay cut, but what the hey, it sounds like fun.

Hey, sorry, I thought you were a deer. Oh, that's okay, happens all the time. Are you Mike Socher? That's me. Uh, how do time. Are you Mike Socher? That's me. Uh, how do you like working for the Dodgers? Well, it's okay. But sometimes I wish I had something a little more blue-collar. You know, with big machines and cool dials and stuff.

Like an oil refinery or a hydroelectric plant. We should talk. And this is Elvis' rec room. When the king wasn't rehearsing or exercising, he liked to unwind by watching up to three TVs at once. Man, oh man, what a lifestyle. Excuse me, are you Ozzie Smith? Yes.

I have a proposition for you. Hello, are you Don Mattingly? Yes, yes I am. Come in, come in. Can I get you something? What's your name? What a nice guy, Don Mattingly. I'm going gonna say up

front uh i think the guy uh who's the best actor in this is probably mike socia uh the guy who was unintentionally the best is daryl strawberry we'll hear him soon i love how flat he is i i love in that clip it's it's stuck with me ever since then of just the way ozzy smith answers like yes i do think that that's one of the reasons why this episode works so well is a lot of times celebrities come onto this show and they're like hello i'm bono and this is my friend the edge and we're here to play a song and that's not so fun but when they're able to really be directed and they get good lines and there's a a comedic premise around the presence of the celebrity.

It really, it clicks. And this episode has something for everybody to do. And I love the Socia B plot of him wanting to work in a nuclear power plant really bad and spilling all the nuclear waste and going to a hospital. I love his tragic illness did make us smile. Sorry, Henry. No, no. I just love that Can say go can say goes

the only one hired in the normal way of just like well yes smithers would go to a convention where can say where the players are and just hire them directly like that's what you do but all the rest are like smithers like flew around the country to like stalk them at their homes or or get shot at or like yeah apparently the the joke with ozzy smith is that apparently he was known for being a bit of a snappy dresser and so they then wanted to dress him up in tacky tourist outfits as as a way of mocking that i guess i i just know ozzy smith from when briefly i wanted i cared about baseball there were ozzy smith teaches you how to play baseball vhs at the Blockbuster.

And I think we rented one. Not that I had much care for the Cardinals in general. Did it help? But I don't think so. Doesn't seem like it right now. No, no. Trust me, the old bean right now, Bob. Let's see.

You know, I decided to look at Jose Canseco's Twitter account. He's famously a very insane person on Twitter. And all I saw was just like Jose Canseco's Twitter account. Famously a very insane person on Twitter. And all I saw was just like him announcing where he's signing things. So it's funny that's how he's introduced on the show. And also his iPhone or whatever autocorrects his name and he doesn't realize it. So it's like, come see me, Jose Concerto at the car wash. So you'll see that a lot on his Twitter account his iphone correcting his name this stuff with elvis is graceland too it's just remind me i just watched the elvis the ridiculous baz

lerman elvis movie and uh a lot of graceland in that uh i think we're also missing out on ozzy smith a man making millions of dollars playing baseball going wow three tvs yes that's a great one he's so impressed by three televisions yeah you know also when i see don mattingly i'm reminded that you know a while ago he shaved his mustache off i feel like he should have had to keep that mustache the rest of his life it feels feels weird seeing a mustache free don mattingly in interviews and one thing i always forget because i think my brain just fills in the gaps is that we only see how five of the nine are recruited in my head i'm like oh yeah we see how some of those gets them all but no it's always just the five you see then they have to be like ah look we're really running out of time like oh

these guys these guys these guys yeah it's mattingly also says that he has never seen this episode but he still gets 89 cent residual checks from it every now and then just sit down and watch it come on what else you got to do? Apparently, too, he also asked, like, why am I washing dishes when Steve Sachs gets to be in a jazz trio? And then Al Jean told him, like, sorry, we can't change it, and then Mattingly just bought it. And he's like, oh, all right. Okay.

Don, maybe if your name was Sachs, it would have made more sense. Apparently, Steve Sachs was a late replacement uh though though mike reese says he fell in love with him and said he was the most beautiful man he is a very handsome guy it's funny they they told mattingly they couldn't change anything because i think they blew their retake budget for the rest of the season on making new jose canseco scenes damn jose canseco man So it's, yes, after that sequence, Burns then speeds through all of the other names.

It's like, oh, you got Boggs and Clemens and Daryl Strawberry. And yeah, it's... We'll make up some jobs later for the rest of them. How would you like to be a ringer on a small town company softball team? Would I? And now I'd like to introduce the new members of our happy power plant family. Our new security guard, Roger Clemens. Hello.

Our new janitor, Wade Boggs. How you doing? Our new lunchroom cashier, Ken Griffey Jr. Hey, what's up, guys? Our new, well, we'll make up jobs for these fellas later. Please say hello to Steve Sachs, Don Mattingly, Daryl Strawberry, Ozzie Smith, Mike Socha, and Jose Canseco. Oh, by the way, you newfellas, there's a sign-up sheet

for the company's softball team on the bulletin board over there, just in case you wish to play. Mr. Barnes, with that one on the team, you won't need us. Well, duh. You, Socha, sign up. Thanks, just the same, but I'm here to run the solid contaminant encapsulator. One more outburst like that, and i'll send you back to the big leagues i do think wade boggs is funny

but obviously i think uh i have amnity for wade boggs because he was friends with mr perfect kurt heading in the wwf wrestler oh yeah those famous vignettes uh mr perfect hitting home runs and stuff wade boggs like after they filmed those wade boggs is like hey let's hang out and be drinking buddies and they were wade boggs look it up wade boggs has a story of kurt henning saved his life when they went hunting once wade boggs would be dead without kurt henning uh mr perfect yes but incredible a real life superhero that man he really was perfect. I was going to ask where he is today, but I just found out.

He's very dead. He's probably got to be a skeleton, looking at the date here. I mean, he's lucky if there's still bones left in that coffin. No, it's sad. Yes, I mean, he's a wrestler from the 80s. If you'd guessed dead before looking it up you've you did 80 chance oh i guess dad yeah he's uh whatever's left in there is probably 90 cocaine when you really care about someone you shout it from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing

20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Care, care. Did I mention that we care? Oh, hey, score.

Him and Boggs, I bet they had a lot of fun yeah yeah i think so you never want to be found dead in a hotel room that's just the obituary rights itself yeah sadly that's a that's a lot of wrestler obituary yeah unfortunately it's uh funny on the commentary too they uh jeff martin talks about how him and jim reardon were big red socks are big red socks fans and we're excited that boggs and Jim Reardon were big Red Sox, are big Red Sox fans, and we're excited that Boggs and Clemens were there. And then in this 2002 commentary, Al Jean jokes, well, the next century will be better for you.

The old joke of, yeah, the Red Sox never win a World Series. And Al Jean was right. His joke was correct. This century has been very good to the Red Sox. You know, what's funny is, you know, the Red Sox, of course, had Clemens at this time when the episode aired, and he went to the Yankees and won a World Series with New York. The same with Boggs, right? The hated rivals of the Red Sox, yeah.

Burns also is telling everybody, oh, hey, why don't you just sign up for the softball league? This is such a more innocent era because you could have a character go well duh and have it be sincere not a comment on that style of joke because marge will do it in a streetcar as well it's like right you could just have that be a joke in a show and it'd be fine sort of like saying not after a sentence it's one of the last times well duh could work as a joke but uh yeah and then also i like burns telling uh social one more like that and i'm sending you back to the big leagues but this is another amazing scene here i had to get the clip because daryl strawberry man he's so good in this i think in his flatness

he is hilarious uh with in this exchange with homer you're daryl strawberry yes you play right field yes i play right field too so. I play right field, too. So? Well, are you better than me? Well, I never met you, but yes. It's not fair. Me and the guys worked so hard to get to the championship game, and now we'll be sitting on a bench.

You had so many home runs this year. What makes you think this Darryl Strawberry character is better than you? Well, forget it. He's bigger than me, faster than me, stronger than me, and he already has more friends around the plant than I do. You make me sick, Homer. You're the one who told me I could do anything if I just put my mind to it.

Well, now that you're a little bit older, I can tell you that's a crock. No matter how good you are at something, there's always about a million people better than you. Gotcha. Can't win, don't try. Can't win, don't try. Can't win, don't try. I hope I didn't internalize that joke too much as a kid in that reference, but I do love that Homer just tells like,

when I tell you it's a crock, there's always a million people better than you at something. Don't even bother. But God, Daryl Strawberry's delivering like, well, I never met you, but yes. Just Daryl Strawberry saying yes is well i never met you but yes just like daryl strawberry saying yes is a punch line or or even so so it's like it doesn't matter that you play the same position as me like it really doesn't you suck like you're not as good as me i am daryl strawberry one of

the best players in the world you're not better than me like he just has to it just very he's not in competitiveness with homer he's just like well no i'm not better than me. Like he just has to, it just very, he's not in competitiveness with Homer. He's just like, well, no, I'm definitely better than you. Yeah. Hey, everybody that's on the team, all the famous baseball players are very nice to Homer. Nobody's antagonistic to him. Nobody is like talking down to him. He's just kind of there.

It's just like a regular baseball team. They're like, oh, there's Homer, you know? I also love that Homer has to admit that more people at the plant like Strawberry than him. He's like, he's already got more friends. And it's really funny, too, that she doesn't know who Daryl Strawberry is. It's the Strawberry character. Daryl Strawberry, since this episode aired, had a lot of problems. But I think, I hope he's doing better now i think

but but yes now burns becomes the new team manager for no again there are many great jokes in the series about how burns does things for no good reason other than it's a plot purpose but this this is so great like burns didn't give a shit now that it's a million dollar bet, he shows up and he is an ancient baseball team manager who has only ideas from like 1910 of how to run a team in our next clip. As your new manager, I want to say this up front. No one is assured a spot in the starting lineup. I don't care if your name is Steve Sachs or Daryl Strawberry or Smithy's. What's one of the bad players' names?

Homer Simpson, sir. Or Homer Simpson. Secondly, instead of beer, from now on you'll all be drinking this. It's a brain and nerve tonic, rich in proteids and electromagnetic juices. It promotes robust health. Of course, it has been known to cause gigantism, but only in rare

cases. Try some. Wow. It's like there's a party in my mouth, and everyone's invited. Excellent. Now, let's begin our training, shall we? Smithers, the medicine bowls. Oh, no. I love that all these pro players show up and they're like, we have to train for a week?

Proteans. The use of the word proteans as an ingredient in the tonic is very funny to me uh i mean all this nerve tonic stuff now i wish instead of ken griffey jr this was frank thomas instead he already had a big head already you know you need a bigger head frank thomas is the star of the total t universe of commercials which i have seen too much of uh that uh that tell you that you're you're over 40 your dick don't work and your wife will be happy when you start taking this total tea because your dick will and your bald and your ball and your fat like yeah all the frank thomas is really coming for you in these ads uh this uh people think this party of my mouth

thing is a reference but no they they invented it it's like their own tagline for this for this product and uh on the commentary they say that uh ken griffey jr had a real problem with this line and his dad was in the booth coaching him because his dad was a successful pitch man but you can tell even in the one they kept it's it's a real it's he's having problems with it yeah it's funny mike reese in his book he mentions that like he's seen ken griffey jr in commercial since then and he's like oh he's grown to be a better actor than then but he's you know jr uh was with his dad that day and that he's apparently they were right after they did this recording they then went on our the arsenio hall show together it was it was a double day for them

do we have the flubs he flubbed a bunch and they kept the flubs. Yeah, so this is a really fun thing on the DVD, a real DVD Easter egg you got to dig through. But fortunately, the account on Twitter, Daily Simpsons, pulled it out for us so we didn't have to dig it out ourselves. But yes, there's a bunch of audio files from it. But the one I want to spotlight here is this is Ken Griffey Jr. taking direction and his dad coming in to help him in it. They're picky about things, aren't they?

Wow. It's like a party in my mouth and everybody's invited. Oh, this stuff's great. What is it? Okay. Wow. Wow. This is... What is it? Okay Wow This is It's kind of weird being in this little room

And you guys are out there So I'm trying to get used to it Wow It's like a party in my mouth And everyone's invited Oh no I drink coke It's like a party in my mouth and everyone's invited. Oh, no. I drink Coke.

But I did a Pepsi commercial. Oh, damn. Yeah, I mean, my heart goes out to them. You don't hear the amount of times that we fuck up on podcasts because they get edited out. Yes, yeah. That was painful. It's also funny too so in the book mike reese says he wouldn't have said this line if he knew the dirty connotation we knew of it he reese even calls the line homoerotic because yes a party in your mouth that everyone's invited to is is you're inviting penises into your mouth that's not necessarily true maybe you're inviting

other things into your mouth what a strange what a strange way to describe that well i'm saying when reese says it's homoerotic as a joke in his book i'm like okay then that confirms this is this is a blow job joke oh and i forgot that they they use that line in Flaming Moes earlier this season. Yeah, Moe said it about, yeah. It's like, it's a potty in my mouth. It's a self-callback to have him do it. But yeah, this, Homer, sorry, burns with his nerve tonic is just such a great little joke there. They're building up what's going to destroy everybody here. These Simpsons guys love the snake oil stuff because we just uh covered you'll hear it in about a month or so an episode of Futurama where they get superpowers from like a miracle cream sold by

a guy in a covered wagon that's right yeah space space cream from Dr. Flim Flam yeah so so we have a fun little training montage of everybody using old-timey stuff ill Ill timey even for 1992. The sauna box, the medicine balls, all that stuff. Only seen in three students shorts. And also a great gag of I love Burns trying to teach Ozzie Smith how to do a bunt. And he perfectly like the ball just bounces off of him and all of the energy is transferred to him and he flies back. So good. And then there's another reference to a real sports thing yes this thing with the hypnotist i think it's also a reference to um the natural because they bring in a like a sports psychologist to have

them repeat like losing is only a state of mind but i actually i sent you the link but i forget who the team was they hired a hypnotist in like 87, I believe. Yes, yeah. This was called the article from the LA Times. It's called Thinking Positive. Hypnotist Peter Siegel has the answer for underachieving. And I believe he does it for a lot of teams. But I think, well, he's based out of Marina Del Rey. So yes, I believe he worked a lot with the, oh, the Chicago White Sox.

They're the first ones and the Cubs here. So yes, he worked with those loser Chicago teams. And I think it took a while for that hypnotism to work. But eventually the Chicago teams did win. And I'll credit it all to the hypnotist Peter Siegel. The design for him, they just took the guy who taught the Santa school in the first episode. And they're like, you know, this guy's a hypnotist too. Forget it. Like we're not designing a new designing a new he's making people repeat things in a

different context i also love the the 110 percent line of just like it's impossible if my definition 100 and we also get to see a quick shot of strawberry beginning sucking up to burns and that he's homer calls the ball which you know i i believe in baseball etiquette it's like well if you call the ball let that guy catch it and strawberry snatches it basically flies and snatches it out of the air there's a space jump yes he's magic in some way it's all that nerve tonic i love too that burn says like there's no i in team he's like uh a lot of these guys have a bad attitude. Skip.

Skip. Yeah, he's calling him Skip. What a sucker. That's in Sopranos too. Characters when they, the character of Pauly Walnuts, when he is being the most obsequious to Tony Soprano, he's always calling him Skip. It's just like, that's the thing. Like, yeah, Skip.

You're a sure thing, Skip. It's funny because General Strawberry, known for um insubordination you know not a guy who doesn't show up sometimes like has serious drug problem um but here he's like a saint he is he's a baseball god who loves his manager and well everybody's he wants to be the manager's favorite we We also cut to Mike Socia, who's working all night with radiation. He's I also like he's whistling. Take me out to the ballgame while moving around all this green sludge.

Again, I think a best actor in this like, oh, man, is this ever sweet? And then later when he's dying, he's funny. He's like, oh, man. See, Mike Socia's problem is that he's not a cartoon character like the other characters who can spill radiation on themselves all the time yeah i also love how he puts it like oh man you know when you're a baseball player the press is on you all the time but here in a nuclear plant i make mistakes all the time nobody notices uh yeah he should have been a voiceover actor he had a real real potential after

retirement but he had to go and be the manager of the angels just win a few world series he could have been the net he could have been the seventh chair on the simpsons on their regular voice he could have been fry on Futurama or something. Missed out. We have a cute little scene of boys picking their players, and Ralph gets every Major League Baseball player just happens to walk by. This is pre-Ralph Ralph, but it's weird to see Ralph get a win. Yes, yeah.

I guess it's just a screw bar, but I do love Ralph's innocent way of saying, like, Jose Canseco. Yeah, I feel like this would have been a Nelson thing. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know what? I think it works better with loser Milhouse, but I guess Milhouse has to be, like, picked by Bart as one of his players.

Yeah, that was a real bummer for Bart. Anytime Milhouse is involved in any competition, it's bad news. I love, too, that Griffey is drinking the nerve tonic through the entire scene, too. Like, he can't stop. You just hear that chugging. It's called attention to detail, folks. If you think of the word sideburns, you probably think of scenes like this one.

Yeah. Pick me! Pick me! I pick Ken Griffey Jr. Aw, jeez. Okay, I'll take Milhouse. Hey,house hey mr boggs will you be on my team you got yourself a player damn all right i'll take lewis i'll take jose canseco mattingly get rid of those sideburns what sideburns you heard me hippie yeah and the thing is like this happened to to Mattingly because after he recorded his lines, before the episode aired on August 15, 1991, he was benched by the Yankees manager for not cutting his hair in accordance to the Steinbrenner policies of the early 70s.

So this happened to him. People thought the show was referencing it, but they actually predicted it. So Simpsons predicted actually accurately right yeah yeah it's crazy how simpsons predicted that accurately that they record and that they make it about steinbrenner with a line later everybody thought it was an intentional reference because it happened you know seven months or six months before it aired but no they just they could predict that mattingly would get mad about it yeah it's also like kind of pulled from uh they bring it up in the commentary the oakland a's they got all the press in the 70s They could predict that Mattingly would get mad about it. Yeah, it's also like kind of pulled from, they bring it up in the commentary, the Oakland A's,

they got all the press in the 70s because they let their guys have mustaches and it made other clubs go like, well, I don't care what the A's do, you can't grow a mustache or sideburns or whatever. Yeah, the A's were the cool team back then. Their owner was kind of eccentric and they had all manner of strange promotions and whatnot. Those wild green uniforms

they would wear. Yeah, that was a fun time for baseball. I have an A's baseball hat thanks to going to free hat day at A's games. And of course they lost, I think, about 12-2 that day. It wasn't... The A's not doing so hot. They should do a free ticket

day just to get people to show up. They lost, but they lived up to their part of the bargain of giving you a free hat. Yeah, they can't take, no number of runs given away or runs batted in take away that hat from me. I also know like pals and people who have been guests on this show before, they're not from America and all they know about baseball is this episode of the simpsons like these the only players they know this is all they know about the rules of baseball because baseball is like not popular outside of north america and japan yeah that's about it yeah pretty much so i had to put an asterisk there i forgot oh yeah japan loves baseball that burns

doesn't know what sideburns are i i feel bad that cavner and shearer did not get this joke like it's hilarious that burns burns has some strange idea of what sideburns are whatever that is and he's mad at what what mattingly has as sideburns like it's it's just great you have to embrace the madness of one of these episodes and and accept that sometimes the characters who are crazy will say things that are crazy. But the problem sometimes is that every character in these episodes is crazy. But the wonderful thing about the structure of this episode is every regular character is out of their minds. And then the guest stars come in and they're the straight people for the whole episode. You know, Socia has this dream and then he ends up in the hospital.

Ozzie Smith gets punched. Like it's all that stuff allows the established characters to be more ridiculous. I also just love the idea that Springfield is this. If this happened in the real world, Springfield would be known as the town that like killed the all-star game that year. Like ruined baseball. Ozzie Smith missing. But yeah, so at the end of the act, Burns is letting everybody know that if you didn't make the team, he's very disappointed in you. You were lacking something.

Let's call it heart. I love the turn where he turn raise like for those of you didn't make it i want to assure you and then you think he's going to try to let them down easy but no he's harsher than ever yes uh and also he says like abstain from coffee tea and soda drinks make no mistake they pack a wall up and yes this is the very cute scene where homer homer tries to see his name i also love that all the players who are obviously hired to play the game, they are excited their names are on the thing

of just like, come on, obviously you guys are on the team. This is entirely a waste of a second act. Like, you guys are just on the team. Of course you are, but instead they all just celebrate like, woo, yeah, I made the team. Alright. Tomorrow is the biggest day of your lives, the Shelbyville game.

So lights out at 7.30 and abstain from coffee, tea, and cola drinks. Make no mistake, they pack a wallop. Sure do, Skip. Yes. Now, before I post the starting lineup, I want to assure those of you whose names are not on the list that I'm very disappointed in you. Something was lacking. Let's call it heart. No hustle either, Skip.

That's right, Daryl. Griffey, all right. Yeah, all right. Ah, nuts. Please, please, please. I want to make the team. Clemens, did I make the team? You sure did.

I did! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! In your face, Strawberry! Wait a minute. Are you Ken Griffey Jr.? No. Sorry.

Didn't mean to get your hopes up. I love that Clemens gets Homer's hopes up, but he's like, wait, are you Ken Griffey Jr.? Sorry. Of all the players to mistake Homer for, Ken Griffey Jr. I mean, why not? Why not? The youngest guy on the team, even, who has the least body shape. I mean, none of them have Homer's body shape. It's also funny, too, in the commentary, they mentioned that, like, they didn't imagine that baseball players were that huge.

They're like, oh, yeah, a baseball player basically has just, like, a fit guy's body, right? But, you know, maybe thanks to some help at the time, dudes like Jose Canse say go especially gigantic gigantic man and angry yes very short tempers for some reason yeah i like how act three begins with burns pitching the premise of the act like what if this happens it's so yes i i had to get the clip because this is just rub in your face like obvious of what is about to happen it's so good but it also works as a misdirect too i i love it smithers there's no way i can lose this bet unless of course my nine all

stars fall victim to nine separate misfortunes and are unable to play tomorrow but that will never happen three misfortunes that's possible seven misfortunes there's an outside chance but nine misfortunes i'd like to see that i'd like to see that like it even accepts like three misfortunes sure that'll probably happen you can't count on that not happening but nine nine i'd like to see that i think another reason why maybe this episode was unpopular with the cast is that it was very self-referential and broke the fourth wall constantly and it doesn't have any stakes or drama or anything like as an actor to sink your teeth into it's just gags after after gag after gag after gag they were also very mad about uh cape fear uh especially especially julie and harry they were very mad

about that one too because it is just gags everyone is insane in that episode it's an insane wacky lengthy uh parody of one film that that makes everybody ridiculous yeah i night but also this is why it's such a great misdirect it's not nine misfortunes it is only eight it is meant to mislead you to think homer is going to get to play when the moment happens like and it helps this is one of those moments where there are so many guest stars you actually do forget about daryl strawberry during the rest of it that's right that's right i forgot about it now i was like all right strawberry's still there but then burns takes him out it's called playing the percentages so uh in the series of misfortunes we start with the hilarious situation of a man being falsely accused by the police and

railroaded and uh and sentenced to six life sentences that never happens does it yeah it's uh it's actually very depressing to see now i mean also like the cops are being mean to steve sax in the way evil cops are of and by that i mean cops of just saying that like they take his driver's license and they say you just don't know when to keep your mouth shut now do you sexy boy and they they're going to railroad him for every uh horrible thing that has happened in springfield ever i also think we're getting into hibbert laughing inappropriately being his joke because he's like oh by tomorrow you'll barely be able to breathe. And he's just like

laughing. Yeah, actually, I have that clip too because you're right. Steve Sochi is so funny in this. Yeah. Mike, try to lift your arm. Can't lift arm or speak at normal rate. Well, I'm

afraid you have a case of acute radiation poisoning, Mr. Socher. Will I be able to play softball tomorrow? No, by tomorrow, you'll barely be able to breathe. Oh, man.

Dr. Hibbert, Ken Griffey Jr. needs to see you immediately. We think it's an overdose of nerve tonic. Good Lord. Gigantism. Gigantism design of Ken Griffey Jr. is also so hilarious. I'm happy they let them do this to him, or he let them do this to him. This is the best part of the in-credits, is the team photo,

and you've got Griffey in the wheelchair with his giant head it's so good and he's sucking on the bottle too right yeah he still can't stop nobody who takes it away why don't they sell that as a print i mean we'll get to it but that should be a print you can buy the 1992 team i agree yeah you should be able to buy the nerve tonic at universal studios that should be of all the things they serve there now and it should have coding in it yes yes it absolutely should have coding shut my kid up for a few hours dave you you bring up a great thing too at universal i believe both universals in the simpson section is one of the most the biggest tributes to homer at the bat there is an entire

homer at the bat like carnival game it Homer at the bat, like carnival game. It it's full of references to this. Like you can win an isotopes hat in it. And I spent 16 bucks on those games that I didn't win it. I, I feel like once I get to $25, it's like, just give me the hat.

Come on. You could just buy the hat. I guess I'm like eBay. Sure. No, don't they have the hats? Not, not in quickie Mart.

You can only get it from the games. God, what a rip. I'm going to talk to somebody about that. You know, next time you're down in Burbank, head on in there. See if you can win the Isotope Stand. It's Universal City. Yes. Thank you.

I don't want to lead people astray and have them end up in Burbank looking for the Simpsons. Okay, you're right. Excuse me, sir. Is the Simpsons here? No no this is a city called burbank there's a starbucks down there if you want a coffee are you calling the mayor mayor burbank i wonder who that is uh phil gunderson let's say i i love how he says speak at normal rates That's such a great line Socia is so funny in this I can't get over how good he is

At being part of this universe And Steve Socia would return to the show He's the only actor who did Mike Socia Mike Socia Returned in season 22's Money Bart A parody of Money Ball Where Lisa is the manager and she

gets manager advice from socia uh and they even ask him like wait didn't you get radiation poisoning and he says like yeah but it gave me super managing powers that's a good joke and also an unstated joke in it is that he has aged 20 years and that everybody else looks the same. But he looked like season 22 era Mike Socha. I want to believe that there's a time singularity that surrounds Springfield that prevents them from aging. But everybody in Shelbyville gets older. Everybody around the country gets older. But they stay the same age.

They just watch every guest star die uh yeah i know lisa has an age today but they have a a statue to commemorate my uh leonard nimoy who's been dead for like many years now the conseco bits it's funny yes that they his wife canceled it and then or he you know says oh my wife's mad about this it's like by the time it airs him and his wife are trying to he's trying to kill his wife honestly i think it's for the best that they didn't reference his wife in this episode uh and so i wish we could have seen the scene of edna in the bull durham tub with jose but i guess they probably can't even officially release it because he's in the scene and he'd probably give him crap about it or something which too bad i and that's also just a sequel scene about because in flaming mo's edna

krabappel is doing the drummer of the the aerosmith she won't give a the guy back his drumsticks joey kramer yeah yeah and his amazing line read i really need my drumsticks really so instead uh yes he saves the day but he saves the day too long it takes him all night running in and out of a burning building uh we have a quick scene of margin homer in bed to reset things uh as homer explains that why why should it all be emotionally invested in homer in this episode uh and he also says that he wishes his friends could watch him have sex with Marge. But then we have a quick cut to Wade Boggs. Oh, one thing I'm good at and I can't do it anymore.

Homie, you're good at lots of things. Like what? Like snuggling. Yeah, none of my friends can watch me. And I say England's greatest prime minister was Lord Palmerston. Pit the Elder. Lord Palmerston! Pit the Elder! Okay, you asked for it, Boggs!

Yeah, that's showing him, Bonnie. Pit the Elder. Lord Palmerston! Nice work, boys. I think we can close the book on just about every unsolved crime in our fair city. Don't I at least get to call my lawyer? You watch too many movies, Sax.

A little violin coming in there. Barney is such a depressing character. I'm glad they stopped making him violent. That's the one element of being a drunk I'm glad they stopped making him violent. That's the one element of being a drunk I'm glad they didn't stick with. He had a point, though. Don't you think?

I looked up somebody's story and did a clickbait article of like, but seriously, who's better, Palmerston or Pitt? The guy sides with Pitt the Elder. This article, the writer of it would have been knocked out by barney as well because he sides with boggs and apparently this is funny uh what they had in mind was less funny it was going to be a burping contest between boggs and barney and apparently

boggs had a very good burp and they thought about using it for like every burp on the show from that point forward just so they would know like that's wade boggs i've been so funny man but yeah i and they would try to do a sequel joke to this uh with joe frazier later in the season where uh barney would get an argument with joe frazier and he would knock out joe frazier joe frazier said no to that he was like no you you do not i do not get knocked out by barney the drunk well jerry cooney agreed to get knocked out by auto yes yeah welloney had more experience getting knocked out. That's true. I know that much.

And also, Jerry Cooney, you know, he doesn't have as much self-respect, I think, as Smokin' Joe. I also, yes, the cruelness of you watch too many movie sacks. Oh, also, yeah, Barney knocks out Moe. Like, this has to be the only time barney does a violent thing to mo also yeah and mo welcomes him back with open arms what's wrong with mo why is he so comfortable being abused he needs to go to therapy is what he needs to do uh you know barney is his best cut wait no he doesn't barney owes him tons of money homer is his best customer yeah that's right yeah uh so then we cut to the springfield mystery spot which you know

i've lived here for 16 years i still haven't been to the santa cruz mystery spot i should which this is a direct parody you absolutely should not okay it's not easy to get to from here dave you've you've been to it disappointed yeah it's very lame it's a roadside tourist trap you know the problem is the mystery is uh why is this supposed to be fun and the answer is it's very lame. It's a roadside tourist trap. You know, the problem is the mystery is why is this supposed to be fun? And the answer is it's not. Where did my money go is the mystery. No, instead here the mystery spot actually is a portal to another dimension, which Ozzie Smith never escapes from.

He falls into the opening of the Twilight Zone. Yeah, does Burns then have to um some restitution to the cardinals for disappearing ozzy smith i would think uh his family uh is gonna have a lot to say about this too ozzy smith wrongful death suit perhaps oh yes you know what actually speaking ozzy smith there is one other fun little clip here ozzy smith's son did a great imitation of bart and yeah they recorded it he and one thing before you play the clip yes when he told them that they're like yeah we want to hear it in their minds they're like yeah whatever everybody can do a bart simpson but this kid does a good part and apparently he's gone on to be like an actual filmmaker nico smith is the the his then young son's name more like nepo baby

this is bart simpson who the heck are you even cleans up the language i think that's sam simon yeah i think you're right yeah it's actually really good uh great impression wow yeah his kid uh it was worth recording like it was really good okay so yes, we come back. All the ringers are missing. Burns is losing his mind. Smithers is listing all of them. He says, like, also we see that Homer is very sad.

I just love how Bart says, like, we've seen it, Dad, about sitting on his worthless butt. We get like five seconds of the family in this scene. Not to delay things too long but that scene cut so abruptly it feels like there was more yes yeah the way bar goes we've seen it dad yeah new scene you know it's mike socia talks so slow they got to make space for it mike socia might not live through the night yes we see we're asked about what about clemens he's in no condition to play and he is squawking like a chicken which jeff martin said he was scared to give a direction to a huge man like roger clemens

uh but clemens happily did it and did his chicken noises though this was a funny thing in one of those uh you know look backs on it wade boggs says like i always felt that i should have been the one who thinks he's a chicken and clemens should have been the one knocked out because wade boggs his nickname was chicken man back in the 80s which uh apparently that was because he would eat a whole chicken before games as a as part of a ritual like as in a cooked chicken not like he's not doing a geek show you would eat a cooked chicken but i gotta he's gotta eat the skull the beak the feet apparently they'd done really good one year where he ate chicken before it so he he got the nickname chicken man but it that was his that was boggs's only note on the writing of the episode he's like i should have been the

chicken but then again from the stories we've heard i heard of uh he's his fun times drinking with mr perfect i think him being the one in the bar, I think it makes sense. But yes, Burns tries to threaten the hypnotist. He is then hypnotized into not threatening him. So he won't report him to the American Hypnotical Association, which there actually is in the real world, the American Hypnosis Association. It's just funnier if it's hypnotical. That's a good revision there.

It sounds like nautical. So it's like the American Nautical Association if it's hypnotical. That's a good revision there. It sounds like nautical. So it's like the American Nautical Association instead is the hypnotical. It's like slightly more old-timey of an expression. And so then Mattingly comes in. He is sideburn free. He has shaved off all of his hair from side to side. He almost looks like a monk with his long bit of hair in the back. But Burns still views him as having sideburns and fires him.

When he could have kept him, but he's that mad about sideburns. He won't do it. What about Clemens? Sir, he's in no condition to play. That damn hypnotist. You, look what you've done. My starting pitcher thinks he's a chicken. Make no mistake, I'm going to report this to the American Hypnotical Association.

But I did a good job. A good job. Oh, well, I guess it's not your fault. You did a good job. Mattingly! I thought I told you to trim those sideburns. Go home! You're off the team. For good.

Fine. I still like him better than Steinbrenner. All right, you ragtag bunch of misfits. You hate me, and I hate you even more. But without my beloved ringers, you're all I've got. So I want you to remember some inspiring things that someone else may have told you in the course of your lives and go out there and win. Not so fast, Simpson.

The man who plays your position is still here. Hit the pine. Oh. So this was the moment where everybody's gone. Burns has to give an empty speech, which is so great that his speech is just that, remember a good speech you heard from somebody else. His speech is a description of another speech, of a possible speech. But it's filmed and posed like he's doing a great speech.

Yes. That's so funny. But this was when, as a kid, I was in shock. I was like, wait, Daryl Strawberry didn't have a scene when, when Byrne says, wait, what are you doing Simpson? The man who plays your position is still here. It's like, yep, nothing bad happened to Daryl Strawberry. He's still here.

And even after all that, Homer still doesn't get to play in the big game. It's such a great like F you. And so, yes, but by the way, after this game, uh, after this episode aired, my mom took me and my brother to a braves game that year daryl strawberry played in it and we did yell daryl we did do maybe this is why his life took a turn sorry sorry it was a very common heckle for him back then i see that's uh the simpsons did i was doing it because the simpsons did it but they they were just doing what the regular one was the that's i love the little tear in his eye and that's the last shot of the whole episode over the credits is him crying that now dave in your experience

talking with uh you know famous uh sports figures how how does the taunting from uh from fans get to them do they cry single tears? There's no crying, especially not in baseball. No, I mean, I think it bums anybody out to be. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part.

Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Called a loser or an idiot or that your mother sucks eggs uh etc etc yeah i think it's not fun that said they handle it and uh they go home to all of their money it's true yeah they're doing pretty good when they get home yeah i like how they i mean there's so much to do in this episode this peanuts gag is just so funny and so quick. Just like the shots of the peanuts hitting people in the face, somehow landing in the parking lot. Yes.

Hey, peanuts. Oh, peanuts taste good. Hey, peanuts. Oh, peanuts. And so they just flung peanuts over as fast as they could. Yeah. It's basically just a little SNL sketch about throwing peanuts at people. There are so many of these moments in the episode where you're like, well, that 45 seconds or a minute or whatever could have been devoted to

a B plot for Marge or Bart or Lisa or even Maggie. And Schwarzwilder said, no, thanks. I'm going to have a guy chucking peanuts at people's skulls. What about those guys that chuck the peanuts? They're pretty silly. Isn't that dumb? Isn't that dumb? Yeah. I love this episode because of that, because it really has no interest in the core characters in any way that is dramatic or illuminating. It is just a funny episode.

In this episode, Marge's plot is waiting for Homer to stop scratching his balls. I thought you told... What did she say what is that line like it's like uh kids like we'll tell you mom that's so good that's such a classic marge i i timed it it's 10 seconds long homer's scratching his balls like at least and he hasn't stopped at the end that 10 seconds i i yeah so there's a funny story behind the scenes on that and listeners already because i put it at the break the commercial for this episode or multiple commercials okay so behind the scenes the fox censors hated that joke they said you cannot have a joke about homer scratching his balls you can't put that on tv through long negotiations they let homer do like one scratch

and then marge can move the camera away then when the episode gets to the marketing team of Fox they're like this is the best joke in the episode we're gonna play it on a loop in the commercial like over and over again I think somewhere along the line they realize like oh right we have another sitcom where the dad puts his hand down his pants in every episode and that's married with children yes yeah it's uh most plots uh revolve around how he will not have sex with his wife it is uh obscene so why get a cartoon man uh who's playing baseball a sport where people often have to adjust their uh their cups or jock straps why why not let him go to town on himself we all know ball scratching happens what in the baseball game

it's crucial it's one of the most important things you can do on a baseball field is readjust your genitals another great little moment i love is this joke at the expense of every manager in baseball and managers in general of just like hit a home run okay skip boom hits it i told him to do that uh All managers are like, no, I told them to work harder. Well, you're doing the real good job here. If you hadn't told Daryl Strawberry to hit a home run, he wouldn't have hit a home run. Well, what's great about this episode is even though, as we've said multiple times, there's no real story or plot or people do things that make no sense. The outcome of the episode does hinge upon mr burns thinking he's a baseball genius that's true so even though like this is a ridiculous like snl sketch of an episode it's his

idea to sub out to bench strawberry and pinch hit homer so there's a little bit of like actual dramatic kind of stuff going on, some dramaturgy happening. So I think they add the drama just a little bit extra. They cut back to Homer and you hear his internal monologue, like they're going to win, no thanks to me. That is definitely a reused shot from earlier, and I think that was probably a late addition.

They're like, wait, we need to remind people that Homer is sad and wants to chill. And nobody's invested in that at this point we forgot about that in act one burns for no reason like he does everything in this episode for no reason burns for no reason decides he's gonna do uh he's gonna run statistics instead of having his best player play as he takes out daryl strawberry in this next clip wait Wait, you, Strawberry. Good effort today. Take a lap and hit the showers. I'm putting in a right-handed batter to hit for you. What?

You're pitch hitting for me? Yes. You see, you're a left-hander and so is the pitcher. If I send up a right-handed batter, it's called playing the percentages. It's what smart managers do to win ball games. But I've got nine home runs today. You should be very proud of yourself.

Sit down, Simpson. You're batting for strawberry. I am? That a boy, Hobo. You can do it. All right, Simpson, let's go over the signals. If I tuck the bill of my cap like so, it means the signal is a fake. However, I can take that off by dusting my hands thusly. Got it. If I want you to bunt, I will touch

my belt buckle not once, not twice, but thrice. Uh-oh. I don't understand a word he's saying. Why didn't he just let me bat? I wish I was home with a big bag of potato chips. Mmm. Potato chips. Got that, Simpson?

Yes, sir! Anytime I zone out, I think of this scene like it's just so great i also this taught me the word thrice which was very helpful because there was just a anime movie of neon genesis evangelion called thrice upon a time and every time i heard the name of that title i was like like mr burns says thrice yeah i just love that he's being subjected to burns's crazy whims like this is a joke about bad coaching that one that burns is like well yeah it's called it's what smart managers do to play ball games you play the percentages uh and then on top of that that he brings in homer

for no good reason like even smithers cannot contain his like what what yes uh and i love the delivery of but i hit nine home runs today you just can't believe it and he's been sucking up to burns this entire time and yet burns burns takes him out of the game and and it's a great joke that everybody boos homer except his family too like because because this is homer is going to lose the game for everybody uh i mean i'm surprised so they do like um the natural music when when the ball hits him and everything i'm Because this is, Homer is going to lose the game for everybody. I mean, I'm surprised. So they do like the natural music when the ball hits him and everything. I'm surprised they didn't have the scene take place at night because it's an essential part of the natural.

They can't have the lights shatter because the ball hits him in the head. But they do the slow motion, which I'm sure the animators love to do. And they did the Randy Newman score, well, Alf Clausen's version, but they didn't put it at night they didn't say that which seems like if you're gonna go that far just make it a night night game they they saved it for the last episode we did with dave which has the the ending of running the bases at night and all the lights explode that was another natural thing yes that was a natural ending too yeah oh my god a great film um i like that it's completely undramatic like if it was at night it would feel cinematic and dramatic that's that's what you know darkness often achieves in a thing like this but it's a it's a beer league softball game it ultimately is meaningless you know i like that

uh and then homer gets hit in the face he gets beamed taken out seemingly concussed horribly concussed homer has cte but we he already would have anyway but later on we established that homer has a thick layer of fluid surrounding his brain that's true though you know in the upcoming april fool's episode we see that his head is covered in lesions and horrible damage like yeah this homer is knocked out this is when i as a kid i learned the rule that uh it counts as a hit and that uh i also love that lisa lisa is perfectly cast as the score sheet having dork at at baseball games like who knows all the rules like that's exactly who lisa would be i mean i've i read that about aljean as well mike reese said that like aljean was one of those guys who at least when they were working on this episode when the sports almanac would come out for the year he'd buy it

and read it and memorize all the stats in it that he could like he he was that kind of hardcore fan just like lisa sounds familiar to me uh do you. You don't bring the scorecard to the game anymore, though, Dave, do you? I actually do. My girlfriend and I keep score together. We trade off innings. Oh, that's sweet. It is nice, isn't it? And what, Dodgers games?

Oh, yeah. No, I'm not going to Anaheim for anything. I don't go to Rancho Cucamonga to watch minor league baseball. You had a great, yes, last time you were on, you've had a great point about how why ever see a minor league baseball game. Yeah, unless you're there to get drunk. There's no, it's not fun. You're not rooting for anyone.

When your minor league team wins the championship, what do you do? Is there a parade in Poughkeepsie for whatever? No. Also, dave with all this stuff with the crazy old man running things i i would guess you have no experience of that in your background working at wwe uh writing oh you know what's funny is vince mcmahon is very burns-esque uh many of the funny vince mcmahon stories you hear sound like a Mr. Burns story. Yeah, some sort of light bullying. But yes, the Homer is knocked out, and it's a happy ending for everybody, even Homer, in this last little clip here.

Huh? Oh, dear. No, Mom, it counts as a hit. Dad just won the game. Well, I guess he'll be happy when he comes to. We won, we won, all right. And everybody celebrates. They are moving Homer's unconscious body off of home plate.

I mean, the real winner here is Charlie. Yeah, he gets to score the run. I feel bad for Charlie because I feel like early on they thought, yeah, carl and charlie the trio of workers that homer talks to and then dan castellana admits like i was just doing an impression of lenny i don't know who charlie is which i think is why they they suck charlie into a tube yes and then have the fbi arrest him later right they're trying to get rid of charlie constantly that's true most jokes about charlie that i remember involve his disposal like he's he's plotting to overthrow the government in another episode because uh at the time the government was holding back hd

television broadcast signals that was why he was him and his militia were planning to overthrow the government a a cute joke oh how fun yeah yeah uh but here charlie just gets to win and he's not he gets to celebrate and then we see the the entire team and yes Bob like you said well a shot for the ages of the series of all of the players with their different maladies including Ozzie Smith who just like is has uh like his ghostly form projected into it Steve Sachs who's still handcuffed to uh eddie and uh and king griffey jr in his uh oh and i guess to uh mike socia is also in a hospital gown still too yeah every all these horrible horrible things but it says just to date it 1992 city champs i love it says that they wanted

it to be dated for that year and it gets it gets older and older every time and uh yes we then the last thing is uh we have a over the credits parody song with sepia toned clips from the episode uh called talking softball which is a parody of a song yeah but was sung by the same guy yeah terry cashman i don't think anyone from our generation knew this was a song before the parody at least i didn't know when i I talked to at the time did. And I prefer so Jeff Martin, the baseball super freak on the staff outside of John Swartzwater. He wrote this parody, his parody rules. And I was thinking about it. And it's like, the show we're looking back on right now is older than the baseball he was looking back on in the early 80s in his original song talking baseball yeah yeah you're right man because the song the song was 81 it's called talking baseball parenthetical willie mickey and the duke that's that's how it goes meaning willie mays mickey mantel and some third guy named the duke duke duke snyder thank thank you i was hoping dave you could pull some member of uh royalty who owns

weird that he put him in a baseball song but uh yeah now the uh yeah willie mickey and the duke like it is it's just a list of things like it's just like in this player to this and that and cashman also did a yankees version of it that is just like just a list of names. Like, I mean, you can see why as a novelty song, it would have been a hit with aging baby boomers in 1981, who I guess would have been approaching 40 at the time. So they're looking, they want to look back. The fun thing in the song is, I think, because he's being too, he's being very respectful. The last lyric is him talking about then current day players and saying like they're all so great this guy and this guy everybody's gonna play a baseball and

me saying how good old baseball was is not me saying new baseball's bad he wants to make that very clear and i think part of the conceptual joke of talking softball is now lost because the joke was like having nostalgia or something you just saw well now it's been 31 years and we have nostalgia for the song talking softball and homer at the bat so uh that that conceptual joke has kind of lost the time yeah now it's just pure nostalgia for a 31 year old episode of television uh and it's it's a sweet song oh yes listing every problem that happened to everybody it's so great and that And the last shot is Daryl Strawberry crying just to get one more meme thing of Daryl Strawberry in the episode. He's a good sportsman. I mean, this is not an interesting story, by the way, but I will tell it.

I think I told it earlier when we did this before, but I have a lot of memories of watching television and movies. And I remember watching the rerun of this the tape of the rerun and listening to talking softball my mom comes down the stairs and is like do you kids want to see batman returns so my mom took us to see that very horny inappropriate movie and we we all loved it wow what a day yeah what a day to be alive in 1992 that is amazing man i yeah my my mom helpfully explained what this was a reference to she's like oh it's that talking baseball song it's i don't think she even knew it was the same singer but she a lot until about season six references in the show were usually explained to me by watching

it with my mom where she's like well that's this movie that movie she i i appreciate her doing that eventually eventually i could do it for myself as all children must do someday you must grow old and find out the references for yourself yes but now references are all to things that happened last year yeah i don't like i i'm not looking forward to all of these kids doing references to things from like 2012 it's like remember 2012 it's like it's 10 it was over 10 years ago now. Even then, I feel like there's no clear cultural identity to that period, right? I think the funniest thing about growing up as a millennial and watching things like The Simpsons or Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Conan O'Brien is they would reference these things from the 70s and the early 80s that you had no concept of, or the 30s, 40s, 50s. And

it was like a door opening into this really bizarre adult world that you had no concept of. And Abe Vigoda, why is that funny? I don't know, because he's old and seemingly couldn't die. It was just so fun to learn about baby boomer culture through the eyes of gen x and i don't think there's ever going to be that kind of that kind of um peculiar culture anymore sadly yeah we have to explain to generation alpha what manix is yeah no one's ever gonna understand this it's so sad the simpsons is another one of those things where it's just like this is a parody of what baby boomers were interested in. It is a show made by boomers or Gen Xers about their childhood. Older Gen Xers. Basically, Bill and Josh were the older Gen Xers who took over the show in 7 and 8.

Everybody before that a boomer. But, yeah, I mean, this is a total classic episode, especially if you were a baseball viewer at the time. You're like oh yeah i remember all of these players all the players joke about when asked about it is like yeah i get asked about this episode like nine times out of ten that i'm at a baseball card signing event or whatever like it's mainly what they are remembered for more more than world series wins or anything like that it's being in this this timeless episode of the simpson absolutely yeah like i said earlier to start the show i was worried it wouldn't be as

good uh but i was uh correct it is good it's still very very good and uh yeah i mean i don't care about baseball or any of these people but i've still always loved this and i think my the joy i get out of this is just the very crazy juggling act of telling all of these stories and actually accomplishing that in like 20 minutes it's like a astounding feat of comedy and that's why I really like it also very very funny and Mr. Burns is right

Dave any final thoughts? I was sad when it was over I was having so much fun with the show and the rhythms of it and the absurdity of the premise that I was sad when it was over and i've seen this episode a million times and it still works it's still funny and it makes great use of guest stars which i think again simpsons isn't always successful at finding guest stars who can also be funny and play the comedy uh without being the the kind of like

here's a guest star shine the light on the guest star and then they walk away which happens all the time on the show but this is just like man it really works and there are some really hilarious line readings from some of these guys it's yeah it's it's a great one that had a long shadow on the show going forward yeah it still does i'm sure so dave thanks for joining us once again please let everyone know out there where they can find you online and what you could be working on at this moment. Well, I'm on the show at this moment.

Um, do, do not follow. Are you doing other work while you talk to us? That's what I'm asking. Yeah. There's a, are you doing emails?

Heavy sounds of my keyboard clinking and clinking, uh, that you'll notice throughout the episode. Um, do not follow me on Twitter because Twitter is terrible. Don't follow me at Dave underscore Schilling on Twitter because it's run by an evil person so don't do that

and then you can find my work on the LA Times website whenever it comes out you'll see oh yeah I forgot I was citing your employer when I mentioned that LA Times article oh yeah I got a little nervous there am I forgetting to do something you see I didn't go into my long screen about how I don't like the –

no, I like – the LA Times is a fine paper. What the hell? Yeah. No. Say that to my face. No, it's great. No, I'm just kidding. You can say whatever you want.

You know, they pay me. I don't own the thing. I'm not Mr. LA Times. But, well, you are Mr. Baseball. So thank you again for coming on for your second Baseball Simpsons episode. My pleasure. Yes, thank you, Dave. Aren't there like 12 more?

Oh, there's many more. There's many more to come. There's many more to come, yeah. But thank you so much, Dave. You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks so much to Dave Schilling for being on the show. Please check out his stuff.

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Talk to the audience, and we'll see you then. Well, Mr. Burns had done it. The power plant had won it. With Roger Clemens clucking all the while. Mike Socha's tragic illness made us smile. While Wade Boggs lay unconscious on the ballroom tile We're talking softball From Maine to San Diego

Talking softball Mattingly and Canseco Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw Steve Sachs and his running with the law We're talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw We're talking softball from Maine to San Diego Talking softball, Mattingly and Canseco Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw

Steve Sachs and his running with the law Ozzie and Canseco, Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw. Steve Sachs and his running with the law. We're talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw. Where do you think you're going? To the game No, no, no I don't want you to see me sitting on my worthless butt We've seen it, Dad