The Mighty Casey

Right after the greatest episode of "The Twilight Zone" season one – the downright phenomenal "The After Hours" – regretfully comes one the weakest episodes… "The Mighty Casey" is a rather goofy, childish, uninteresting and tension-free tale about bad baseball teams and sentimental human emotions. In other words, two subject that yours truly doesn't hope to find in his favorite Science- Fiction TV-show. Jack Warden plays the coach of an awfully performing baseball team, the Hoboken Zephyrs, which suddenly sees the opportunity to become successful thanks to the incredible talents of their new pitcher. The reason why odd Casey is such a fantastic player, however, is because he's an emotionless robot. When the foul play gets discovered, Casey's creator proposes to provide his robot with an actual heart in order to make him even more human, but apparently this physical upgrade has a disastrous impact on his pitching performance. I'm having some difficulties identifying the purpose of this episode. If a brilliant scientist like Dr. Stillman manages to build such a realistic robot like Casey, why would he only use it to play baseball with the lousiest team in history? And what's the moral of this tale, anyway? As soon as you follow your heart and show emotions, you can't be successful in life anymore? If so, that's a pretty lousy and discouraging message.

This is a decent enough episode about a baseball team that must resort to a robot to get the job done. Of course, when the whole cheating thing comes into play, the game is diminished and it becomes about the people in charge and their decisions. It's about what happens when we inject humanity into the equation. When Casey begins to mow down the hitters he is indeed a robot. This is a rock and a hard place. He can't pitch because he's not human--how do we make him human. Like in the Wizard of Oz, we give him a heart. In Damn Yankees there is a song, "You Gotta Have Heart." That's a baseball movie. Of course, once we get a heart, we begin to see that there are others around us that we need to be concerned about. Suffice it to say, those who get their wishes too easily don't always profit very much. This is no exception. But it leaves you with hope that cheating can win out in the end.

Yes this episode sounds very familiar to us, now, in 2025, because I think it announces the Artificial Intelligence sixty years in advance, a future era where technology and robots will replace human beings? Back in 1960, maybe it sounded funny, amusing, interesting...Now, when I write those lines, I will not say it is sad, but it is still rewarding to discover this episode in a period where A I will slowly but surely replace the humans in any domain; including human feelings...I don't know anything about base ball, but I got the message. Nothing special however, besides what I said, just interesting. Bitterly interesting.

...is a coward. Truly incredible story by my boy Rod.

Jack Warden plays a professional Baseball manager of the perennial losers the Hoboken Zephyrs, who one day is approached by a mysterious inventor who promises him a chance to reverse his team's misfortune by giving his android named Casey a chance at play. Skeptical but desperate, the manager gives Casey a chance, and is astonished and delighted when Casey hits home-run after home-run, becoming a media sensation and giving the Zephyrs a fighting chance at the pennant until Casey's identity is threatened with exposure... Warden makes this otherwise featherweight episode tolerable, though remains among the least efforts in the canon. Will appeal most to Baseball fans.