Homer at the Bat (S03, E17-052)

Greatest team of all time.  Also note how mad Strawberry is.

Plot Summary
As the episode begins, its learned that the nuclear plant is holding softball tryouts.  While most of the workers aren't willing to try and improve upon their best ever season where they were 2-28, Homer confidently signs up, promising some kind of secret weapon, convincing the others to sign up.  Its learned that Homer's weapon is a homemade bat, made from a chunk of tree shot down by lightning.  While some such as Lenny or Carl are unimpressed with Homer's "Wonderbat", Homer shows them by hitting a game-winning grand slam.  Homer continues to hit home run after home run throughout the season, prompting the others to devise "magic bats" of their own.

Suddenly, the Springfield nuclear plant's softball team is in the title game against the Shelbyville plant's softball team.  The two plant owners, Mr. Burns and Aristotle Amadopoulos respectively, agree upon a million dollar bet to the owner of the winning side.  Never one to test winning legitimately when shadier options are available, Burns comes up with a plan to hire major league ringers, and give them token jobs at the plant so they can join the softball team.  While the players Burns had in mind have been dead for some time, Smithers is able to round up nine young, living players: Jose Canseco, Mike Scioscia, Ozzie Smith, Steve Sax, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs and Ken Griffey Jr.

Homer and the other workers see what's going on and are miffed that they'll be forced to sit out the title game they've worked so hard to reach.  Burns tries to apply his methods to prepare his new ringers, including giving them Brain & Nerve Tonic (which only Griffey drinks), and hypnosis.  The new team is able to gel, with Clemens even being able to destroy Homer's Wonderbat, and soon enough its learned that all nine ringers make the starting lineup.  Burns can't wait for the game, knowing full well its impossible for all nine men to suffer separate mishaps that prevent them from playing.  Three?  Perhaps.  Seven?  Outside chance.  Nine?  No way!

Then the mishaps started.

• Steve Sax gets pulled over by the cops who, upon learning Sax is from New York, ultimately charge Sax responsible for all the unsolved murders in New York, leaving him in jail.
• Mike Scioscia, the only one who actually tried to work at the plant due to some odd love for blue collar work, suffers acute radiation poisoning and is left barely able to move or breathe.
• Ken Griffey Jr. has had too much of the Brain & Nerve Tonic and is now suffering from gigantism.
• Jose Canseco saves a woman's baby from a burning house, then her cat, and then proceeds to save all of her possessions, which can take a long time.
• Wade Boggs, for some silly reason, believes Pitt the Elder was England's greatest Prime Minister.  Barney, who knows that Lord Palmerston is the true greatest Prime Minister, knocks Boggs out for his poor opinion on the matter.
• Ozzie Smith, having become some kind of tourist-type, tries out Springfield's Mystery Spot, which takes Ozzie to a dimension beyond our understanding.
• Roger Clemens has been hypnotised to believe he's a literal chicken.  The hypnotist tricks Burns into thinking he did a good job.

Well, what do you know, seven mishaps.  That just leaves Strawberry and Mattingly.  Oh, wait, Mr. Burns kicked Mattingly off the team for not trimming his sideburns.  With only Strawberry left, the original softball team gets to take the field, except Homer whose position is still filled by Strawberry.  The game goes to the bottom of the 9th inning, tied at 43, but the plant has the bases loaded.  Burns, in a classic example of Jim Leyland-level over-managing, takes Strawberry out in favor of Homer, using the right-handed Homer against the lefty pitcher aka "playing the percentages".  As Homer is left confused trying to figure out Burns' hand signals, he gets plunked in the head by a pitch, forcing the winning run home.  Everyone celebrates the title, and raise the unconscious Homer up as the hero.

Quick Review
Homer at the Bat is, without question, the best episode of Season 3, and among the best episodes of the entire series.  Never before or never again could any show take what ends up being 10! guest stars and fit them all into a single episode so seamlessly, in situations where some of those people aren't even portrayed well or suffer poor fates, and work so well.  Its a wonderful watch that every Simpsons fan both new and old must watch at some point.

I'll just finish this with the song played during the closing credits.

Well, Mr. Burns had done it, the power plant had won it, with Roger Clemens clucking all the while.
Mike Scioscia's tragic illness made us smile.  While Wade Boggs lay unconscious on the bar room tile.

We're talkin' softball, from Maine to San Diego, talkin' softball, Mattingly and Canseco
Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw.  Steve Sax and his run-in with the law.  We're talkin' Homer... Ozzie and the Straw.
 
We're talkin' softball, from Maine to San Diego, talkin' softball, Mattingly and Canseco
Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw.  Steve Sax and his run-in with the law.  We're talkin' Homer... Ozzie and the Straw.

Final Score: 10