While I never was interested in sports, The Twilight Zone has a way of making basically every subject or premise interesting through its quality storytelling and morals. This episode, an early one from the show's first season, shows how even non-living things can occupy a special place in the minds of those close to them. The Mighty Casey begins in New Jersey. McGarry (Jack Warden), is the manager of a demoralized and objectively terrible baseball team known as the Hoboken Zephyrs, and they never win any games. McGarry is met by Doctor Stillman, a man who introduces him to someone he believes is going to make a welcome addition to the Zephyrs: Casey (Robert Sorrells). When Stillman tells McGarry Casey is a robot, there's no way he can believe him, but Casey demonstrates his abilities by throwing fastballs and slowballs that can't be dealt with. Casey goes on to make the Zephyrs perform really well and restores their reputation, but after being hit in the head by a baseball one day, he is medically investigated and discovered to not be a human being. The baseball commissioner visits Casey and tells him he is disqualified from playing baseball as the rules dictate only men (not machines) can play. Stillman proposes giving Casey an actual heart, seeing as how that is the only thing differentiating him from a person in the commissioner's eyes. Stillman successfully completes the operation. However, because of his new heart, Casey now possesses sympathy and doesn't want to make members of opposing teams sad by striking them out. Casey quits baseball to work in the social field. Certain that the Zephyrs will perform terribly again now that Casey is gone, Stillman gives Casey's blueprints to McGarry as something to remember him by. Suddenly, McGarry has an idea and catches up to Stillman, telling him he wants to construct a whole baseball team of Casey androids. While a pretty simple and comedic episode, I did enjoy The Mighty Casey when I first saw it almost 4 years ago and still do to this day. The backstory to it is admittedly kind of sad, but you'd never guess it by watching such a lighthearted episode. Actor Paul Douglas was originally supposed to play McGarry in this, as he already played a baseball manager in a previous movie he did in the 50s. He died not even a week after Serling finished shooting the episode. As a result, Serling had to film the entire thing again with a new actor for McGarry, and was not reimbursed by CBS for his trouble. No matter how good of a writer you are, companies will always find ways to rip you off. Still, I think the way this episode turned out was worth the reshoot, and Serling once again proved himself in the realm of fantasy television.
Review of The Mighty Casey
