It's said that one's personal golden age occurs around the age of eight to ten. In that case, mine was one of the goldenest. Even though the Yankees got smoked by the Pirates in 1960, they came back the following year to take out Cincinnati in the World Series. The 1959 Topps Baseball card set to my mind was the best looking one of all time, and the era offered such greats as Mantle (#7, same as The Mighty Casey - coincidence?), Mays, Aaron, Kaline, Williams, Spahn and Burdette; I could go on but you get the idea.
When a team twenty games out of first place considers a single win a streak, the appearance of a player who 'pitches like nothing human' is a sure fire recipe for a rise in the standings. I'm glad Rod Serling could take things a little less seriously every once in a while and just go for grins. Jack Warden makes his second appearance as a Twilight Zone headliner in this episode, he was also featured as a convicted criminal on an outer space asteroid in the seventh episode - 'The Lonely'. Warden could play a lot of different roles; here he's the meathead manager of a cellar dweller appropriately named the Hoboken Zephyrs. That would have made them the fourth major league team from the metro New York area, slight overkill but Serling was a New York boy himself.
The similarity of the story to "The Wizard of Oz" is unmistakable, even if the result is somewhat the opposite. The Tin Man also needed a heart to become human, but once Casey gets one, he can no longer be heartless. There's some kind of cosmic serendipity in that observation, I think I'll stick with it.
You know, I give Serling credit for going out on a limb with his prophetic narrative at the end of the story. He said it was rumored that Coach McGarry moved his team out West a few years later and came up with a pitching staff like nothing human. I always wondered how Koufax and Drysdale did it.
When a team twenty games out of first place considers a single win a streak, the appearance of a player who 'pitches like nothing human' is a sure fire recipe for a rise in the standings. I'm glad Rod Serling could take things a little less seriously every once in a while and just go for grins. Jack Warden makes his second appearance as a Twilight Zone headliner in this episode, he was also featured as a convicted criminal on an outer space asteroid in the seventh episode - 'The Lonely'. Warden could play a lot of different roles; here he's the meathead manager of a cellar dweller appropriately named the Hoboken Zephyrs. That would have made them the fourth major league team from the metro New York area, slight overkill but Serling was a New York boy himself.
The similarity of the story to "The Wizard of Oz" is unmistakable, even if the result is somewhat the opposite. The Tin Man also needed a heart to become human, but once Casey gets one, he can no longer be heartless. There's some kind of cosmic serendipity in that observation, I think I'll stick with it.
You know, I give Serling credit for going out on a limb with his prophetic narrative at the end of the story. He said it was rumored that Coach McGarry moved his team out West a few years later and came up with a pitching staff like nothing human. I always wondered how Koufax and Drysdale did it.