"Homer at the Bat" and the Greatest Guest Cast in TV History
On February 20, 1992, The Simpsons aired an episode featuring nine real ballplayers voicing themselves. It was the first episode to beat The Cosby Show in the ratings and remains the most successful intersection of baseball and television comedy.
On February 20, 1992, The Simpsons aired "Homer at the Bat," an episode in which Mr. Burns recruits nine major league ringers for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's company softball team. The episode featured nine real ballplayers voicing themselves, including Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey Jr., Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith, Jose Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry, and Mike Scioscia.
Each player suffers a bizarre misfortune that prevents him from playing in the championship game. Griffey Jr. develops gigantism from taking a nerve tonic. Ozzie Smith falls into a dimensional vortex at the Springfield Mystery Spot and is never seen again. Sax is arrested for every unsolved crime in New York City. Clemens becomes convinced he's a chicken after being hypnotized. Mattingly is benched by Burns for refusing to shave his sideburns, despite having no visible sideburns. Only Strawberry makes it to the game unscathed, and he is knocked unconscious by a fly ball in the final inning, allowing Homer to win the game by getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
The episode is consistently ranked among the greatest in the show's history. It was the first episode of The Simpsons to beat The Cosby Show in the Nielsen ratings. The players recorded their lines individually, since their schedules made group recording impossible. Several reportedly struggled with the comedic timing. Griffey Jr. proved the most natural actor of the group.
The episode has taken on additional layers of meaning over time. Several of the fictional misfortunes proved eerily prophetic. Performance-enhancing drug allegations ultimately destroyed Clemens's real-life reputation. Canseco, who in the episode rescues a woman's cat from a burning house and misses the game, later became baseball's most prominent steroid whistleblower.
Mattingly's sideburns subplot, the funniest storyline in the episode, was based on the real Yankees' strict grooming policy under George Steinbrenner. In 1991, manager Stump Merrill had benched Mattingly for refusing to get a haircut. The Simpsons turned the incident into a running gag that has outlasted both Mattingly's playing career and Steinbrenner's ownership.
"Homer at the Bat" is the most successful intersection of baseball and television comedy in American history, and more than 30 years later, it remains the episode that baseball fans bring up first when The Simpsons comes up in conversation.