Homer at the Bat, 2023 Edition
Casting the remake, 31 years later
Remakes are the easiest thing to do in Hollywood. It seems like, with the exception of Spider-Man, movies get remade every 30 to 40 years. The Italian Job came out in 1969 and again in 2003. Ocean’s Eleven hit screens in 1960 and 2001. Gone in 60 Seconds, 1974 and 2000. So in that spirit, it’s time to remake the classic episode of The Simpsons, “Homer at the Bat”, released in 1992.
For those who haven’t seen the episode, or need a refresher, the story revolves around the nuclear plant’s softball team. Homer and his “Wonder Bat” dominate the city league. But when Mr. Burns and a fellow billionaire make a bet on their teams, the greedy power plant owner decides to stack his team with ringers. Originally wanting stars from the Dead Ball Era, Smithers informs his boss that most of those players have been dead for decades. Smithers then goes and recruits modern day stars.
Plenty has been written about this episode over the years, so I can’t add much to that. Homer was even "inducted" into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his legendary season.
So today I will cast the players for the remake. And of course, they’ll have to learn the official rules of softball:
CATCHER
Mr. Burns’ pick: Gabby Street (d.1951)
1992 Team: Mike Scioscia (acute radiation sickness)
2023 Team: JT Realmuto, Phillies
JT Realmuto feels like the perfect casting for a modern-day Mike Scioscia, and also the catcher most likely to take his no-show job at the plant most seriously. They’re both workhorses (Scioscia averaged 107 games caught in his 13 seasons and Realmuto is at 105 in 10 seasons). Realmuto has twice as many 3.0+ WAR seasons (6 to 3). Scioscia never played another MLB game after 1992 due to a torn rotator cuff, a better fate than his cartoon counterpart, who got acute radiation poisoning.
Gabby Street had a career batting average of .208 and 2 home runs in 8 seasons. But I’ll give him a break at the plate, seeing how in 1904 he used a pillow catcher’s mitt and janky wire mask for protection.
FIRST BASE
Mr. Burns’ pick: Cap Anson (d.1922)
1992 Team: Don Mattingly (fired for facial hair)
2023 Team: Freddie Freeman, Dodgers
There aren’t many player-owner spats in public these days, as Don Mattingly and George Steinbrenner had over his long hair. Freddie Freeman seems like the modern-day version of Mattingly, and probably has at least some beef with his former team’s ownership after some confusing and contentious contract negotiations left him to sign with the Dodgers and to fire his agents. He’ll have to keep his sideburns short and neat to make it to game day.
Cap Anson completed his entire career in the 19th century, finishing with 3,435 hits in 27 seasons spanning from 1871 to 1897 for the Cubs, A’s and Rockford Forest Citys.
SECOND BASE
Mr. Burns’ pick: Nap Lajoie (d.1959)
1992 Team: Steve Sax (arrested for unsolved murders)
2023 Team: Ozzie Albies
Steve Sax won 2 World Series with the Dodgers, a Rookie of the Year, multiple Silver Slugger awards and multiple All-Star selections. Ozzie Albies has had a similar run 7 seasons into his career, minus a ROY award. And hopefully he avoids the same fate as Steve Sax, as the then-New York Yankee was arrested by Springfield PD and sentenced to six life sentences for every unsolved murder in New York City.
Nap Lajoie played 21 seasons, including 7 as a player/manager for a team named after him, the Cleveland Naps (today’s Guardians).
THIRD BASE
Mr. Burns’ pick: Pie Traynor (d.1972)
1992 Team: Wade Boggs (knocked out by Barney)
2023 Team: Max Muncy
Of all the players that played third base in 2023, Max Muncy ranked 12th in WAR, but look up and down that list and find a player more likely to get into a bar argument with Barney Gumble at Moe’s over who is the greatest British Prime Minister. Wade Boggs lost the original debate trying to convince Barney the answer was Pitt the Elder and not Lord Palmerston, leading to Barney punching out Boggs, and then Moe. I think Muncy would chose Robert Banks Jenkinson, steered the country through the period of radicalism and unrest that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Muncy has already gotten into similar nonsense spats, like his beef with Madison Bumgarner (“Go get it out of the ocean”) and various umpires over the years.
Harold Traynor played for the Pirates from 1920 to 1937 and was a career .320 hitter. He was given the nickname Pie because he loved pies as a child. Hopefully not in the American Pie way.
SHORTSTOP
Mr. Burns’ pick: Honus Wagner (d.1955)
1992 Team: Ozzie Smith (fell down bottomless pit)
2023 Team: Francisco Lindor
While he doesn’t do backflips when taking the field, Mr. Smile is today’s version of The Wizard in many ways. He’s perennially on lists of top jersey sales, favorite players and also a 4x All-Star with a Platinum Glove on his shelf. That award wasn’t invented until 2011, but I’m sure the 15x Gold Glove-winning Ozzie Smith would’ve had a few of those. Maybe we can retroactively award some. That is, if we can find him. Poor Ozzie disappeared during a visit to the Springfield Mystery Spot and missed the big game.
Honus Wagner is one of the most famous players of the early years of MLB, not only because of his 3,420 hits and 8 batting titles, but also because his baseball card is one of the rarest and most valuable in the world.
LEFT FIELD
Mr. Burns’ pick: Shoeless Joe Jackson (d.1951)
1992 Team: Jose Canseco (rescuing a baby, and washing machine, from a fire)
2023 Team: Kyle Schwarber
The 2023 version of a Bash Bro and also most likely to spend all night rescuing all the appliances and furniture from a stranger’s apartment fire, Kyle Schwarber is the best replacement for Jose Canseco. Luckily, he’s also by all accounts a much better person. While Jose has more hardware (Rookie of the Year, MVP, 6-time All-Star) than Schwarber (2x All-Star, 1 Silver Slugger), he also has more arrests and divorces (6 and 2 versus 0 and 0).
Despite Canseco’s rap sheet, it was Shoeless Joe that was banned from baseball. The most famous player in the Black Sox scandal of 1919, he was forced out of the game at the age of 32. He had a career slash line of .356/.423/.517 in 13 seasons.
CENTER FIELD
Mr. Burns’ pick: Harry Hooper (d.1974)
1992 Team: Ken Griffey Jr. (nerve tonic addiction)
2023 Team: Julio Rodriguez
The current star center fielder for the Mariners is the perfect casting choice for the previous star center fielder for the Mariners. While there will never be another phenomenon like The Kid in the 90’s, Julio Rodriguez brings just as much joy and excitement to the game with his talent and charisma. And fortunately for Mariners fans, this time the team made sure to keep him around long term, signing their star through 2034.
Harry Hooper was a Hall of Fame center fielder who won 4 World Series in the 1910’s with the Red Sox. He is the only player in baseball history to win 4 championships with Boston.
RIGHT FIELD
Mr. Burns’ pick: Jim Creighton (d.1862)
1992 Team: Darryl Strawberry (starter)
2023 Team: Fernando Tatis Jr.
The 2023 player that would fit best as Homer’s foil is Fernando Tatis Jr. He has the power (to hit 9 home runs in a game), the athleticism (to jump 10 feet in the air for a fly ball) and the confidence (“Are you better than me?” “I don’t know you, but yes”) that prime Darryl Strawberry had. And we know they’re both sensitive to heckling.
Jim Creighton never played Major League Baseball, because he played before it existed. He was a star for multiple Brooklyn teams before passing away in 1862 at the age of 21 from a ruptured hernia, reportedly caused by taking such a powerful swing, the torque was too much for his body to handle.
PITCHER
Mr. Burns’ pick: Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown (d.1948)
1992 Team: Roger Clemens (hypnotized into thinking he’s a chicken)
2023 Team: Spencer Strider
Today’s young flame-throwing phenom, Spencer Strider has similar qualities to Roger Clemens. They both have slick nicknames (Silver Strider and Rocket). They both create mixed emotions in fans (Clemens with his temper, Strider with his preference that no fans are allowed at games). They both dominated the league at a young age. In his third season, at the age of 23, Clemens won the 1986 MVP and Cy Young awards with a 24-4 record, 238 strikeouts and a 169 ERA+. In 2023, at age 24, Strider finished 4th in the Cy Young voting with a 20-5 record, 280 strikeouts and a 115 ERA+. Both are likely to succumb to being hypnotized into believing they’re a chicken by the hypnotist Mr. Burns uses to get his team to give 110%.
Three-Finger Brown was one of the best pitchers of his era. Six times in 14 seasons he had an ERA under 2.00, won 2 World Series with the Cubs and made the Hall of Fame. All this despite losing two fingers on his throwing hand in a childhood farm accident.
So there you have it. Your 2023 Springfield Power Plant softball ringers. I assume after the fiasco of the 1992 game, Mr. Burns will keep his prized recruits safely quarantined and sequestered until gameday to avoid the 8 unfortunate events that nearly cost him the game last time. But this lineup, with Hall of Famer Homer Simpson available to pinch hit in a clutch at bat, could compete with any era’s best.
