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| Mike Sciosia's tragic ego made us... well, not really smile per se... |
Springfield Elementary has its first ever student graduate from an Ivy League school - Yale, no less - and she's come back visit the school where it first started. The woman meets Lisa, but when Lisa tries to tout her extracurriculars, it still pales in comparison to what the Yale grad had going at the same age, and tells Lisa she'll need to do a lot more if she wants to get to a good school. Later that day, Flanders goes to the Simpson house to inform Bart that he is resigning as the manager of his little league team, noting that by letting a bad call go he's lost his way. The team is likely disbanded, and Bart is left wondering what to do for the summer. However, he notices the team practicing, and they tell him they have a new manager: Lisa, who openly admits she's only taking the otherwise unwanted job so that she can beef her credentials for Yale. Still, she knows nothing about baseball, and goes off to learn as quickly as possible.
She tries to talk to Homer and his friends at the bar, but they offer little help. Nearby, a gaggle of nerds are discussing baseball in very statistical sense. Lisa talks to one of them, Professor Frink, and he informs Lisa that baseball can be followed by stat-crunchers thanks to the advent of Sabrmetrics which allows anyone with a basic concept of statistics to manage a baseball team. The nerds give Lisa several Sabrmetric books and Lisa quickly learns the material on the fly, the quirky managerial moves she makes enabling the team to victory after victory. The team soon moves up to 2nd place, but Bart gets tired of Lisa's calculating, wishing to return to the game he grew up with. Bart goes up to bat with the bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, and Lisa asks Bart to simply draw a walk to win the game. However, after two balls, Bart has enough and swings at the next pitch. He hits a walkoff grand slam to win the game. As Bart showboats his way back to home, Lisa is furious with Bart for disobeying her and just ups and kicks him off the team.
Bart and Lisa are at odds at home, and the friction extends to the parents where Marge defends the notion of family sticking together while Homer defends the notion of winning in baseball. Still, Lisa's tactics help the team win another game, and Bart feels left out now. Lisa's team gets to play in the state finals, but Ralph gets sick from "juicing" too much, and she needs Bart to take her place. Bart, who's currently on a rollercoaster with Marge, couldn't care less, but behind him is Mike Sciosia, whom as you may (and Marge does) recall suffered from acute radiation poisoning the last time he was in Springfield, not only recovered, but also: gained super manager powers, gained the ability to demagnetize credit cards, and also aged a couple of decades while everyone else stayed the same age. Sciosia tells Bart that he should listen to his manager no matter who it is because that's how you help your team to win. Bart is convinced, I guess?, and he returns to team ready to pinch run at 1st base. Down by one in the 9th inning, Lisa tells Bart not to steal any bases, but Bart steals both 2nd and 3rd base, and announces he's going to steal home, even though Lisa has calculated stealing home to be a virtual impossibility. Even so, Bart makes the attempt and as Lisa begins to freak out over the move, she also starts to realize that the moment is very exciting, and starts cheering Bart on. Of course, the throw to home is in time, and Bart is tagged out at home, ending the game. Despite that, Lisa thanks Bart for helping her realize baseball can be fun and exciting too, like every other sports except not as much, and the two reconcile with the team.
Quick Review
I preface this by stating that while I am a fan of both baseball and statistics, I'm one of the old fashioned types who likes baseball for the fun it may or may not bring at times, and I've never been interested in Sabrmetrics. I don't know why I bothered stating that as that doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the episode, but whatever.
The episode also featured a slightly altered opening sequence by Banksy, some graffiti political activist, whatever. He also was behind the episode's couch gag, which to much criticism showcased animation of the show being done in awful sweatshops in conditions not unlike something you would see in Schindler's list. I wasn't fully aware of the background behind this sequence while watching though it did bug me over how unfunny it was, which I guess was its point, but really, this show isn't a good place to attempt such a shock value statement like that. And of course, nobody even remembers it now unless directly reminded of it, so the point didn't even matter. That's great.
Anyway, the episode itself ended up being okay. Sciosia's appearance this time around wasn't anything special though it was appreciated when a connection between this episode and the one 19 seasons ago was made. Also by this point he hadn't won a World Series in, what, eight years, kinda missed the boat on him being some kind of super manager. Other than that, I felt the opportunities for comedy were somewhat limited with how the episode set itself up. The side thing with Homer and Marge taking sides never went anywhere, and Bart coming back at the end was set up in a rather flimsy fashion. Its not a terrible episode, but it could've been better.
Final Score: 7.0
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