Homer at the Bat

The nuclear power plant softball team goes on an unusual winning streak.

This is one of my favourite episodes from childhood through to adulthood.

I live in a country where baseball is very occasionally played in the school yard and known as 'rounders', so there is no cultural affinity to the sport whatsoever. However, I thoroughly enjoy it as a theme in this story and the many great comedy moments.

My favourites include Homer's method of keeping safe during a thunderstorm, all the characterisations of the real life players, Bart and Millhouse picking teams, Mr Burns' management style, everything that happens to each ringer before the final game, Bart, Lisa and Marge's scenes in the crowd, and the fantastic song at the end.

Absolute classic.

I am reworking my way through the series on Disney+ to review it. I was extremely pleased to see this episode holds up extremely well after all these years. It has a great many injoke for baseball nerds. It has a relatable storyline for Homer. It has Burns at his tycoon best. And above all it is a very, very, very funny episode.

Homer has a secret weapon, a bat born of a thunderstorm. He leads his team to a championship game. But Burns can't leave well enough alone and sends Smithers out to come up with nine major league ringers. But his interference hamstrings them. Very funny episode.

After recently re-watching the first nine seasons or what fans now refer to as the golden age I have come to the decision that Homer at the Bat is my favourite episode of The Simpsons.

I should point out that I'm not a sports fan (far from it as a matter of fact) and due to cultural reasons I do not know who any of these baseball stars are as the sport is not popular in the UK. However, this made me realise just what made the guest appearances during The Simpsons glory days so great. Even if you're not familiar with a celebrity you can still enjoy their appearance on the show as they manage to give them their own unique comic, down to Earth personalities. Here there are no fewer nine guest stars and they're all equally memorable and funny. However what also astounds me is how each of these guest stars has their own story arc and all this within the confines of 22 minutes. There is even an early exposure to Barney Gumble being a secret intellectual; leave it to The Simpsons to get the viewer interested in who was England's greatest prime minister. There is so much going on in this episode yet the show's creators successfully get it all in without any of it feeling forced. There's enough material here to make several episodes.

Homer at the Bat is one of the more surreal episodes of The Simpsons' glory days and they even manage to summarise this during the end credits in one catchy song (a parody of Talkin' Baseball by Terry Cashman). Like many Simpsons' parodies it has become more famous than its source and like the best Simpsons' songs, a whole generation can recite it off by heart.

This is the seventeenth episode of the third season of the Simpsons and this is one of my favorite ones. As a huge baseball fan, this was an episode I truly fell in love with and was able to understand the satirical tones. Plus, I loved the guest stars voiced by actual baseball players like Ken Griffey Jr, Roger Clemens, Darryl Strawberry, and Jose Canseco. But of course, Homer has a huge role in this story.

In this episode, "Homer at the Bat," Homer and his co-workers join the nuclear plant's softball team and they actually do pretty well as they make it to the final. When Mr. Burns gets the wind of that, he decides to manage the team and finds quality MLB players to lead his team.

Overall, a fantastic baseball-influenced episode. I loved the cultural reference to the Natural as this episode essentially turned Homer into Roy Hobbs.....or does it? I rate this episode 9/10.