Homer at the Bat [part 2]
On February 2, 1992, the Simpsons aired one of their greatest episodes when nine MLB players all played guest stars on "Homer at the Bat" where Mr. Burns tasked Smithers to collect the best players in the game to play as his ringers for a softball championship. However, they were not Burns' first choices. He had another nine players in mind, but unfortunately they were all dead by time Burns needed them.
The picture is tough to make out, and Burns only mentioned a few by name, but we do know who the nine players were...
On the mound is Hall of Fame pitcher Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown who could absolutely demolish softball players and definitely hold his own against the modern ringers.
Behind the plate is Charles "Gabby" Street. To show how far back Burns was reaching for this player, he remembers Street from the New York *Highlanders* days.
At 1st Base is another Hall of Famer in Cap Anson. No homers on his chart, but you know in the softball league he'd manage a few long balls with him always getting the advantage with his 13 on-base.
At 2nd Base is Nap Lajoie. If the same plotline occurred to the old school ringers where somehow most of them found a way to not be able to play the game, I'd assume Nap's mishap would be him walking off the team when another team promises to name themselves after him if he joined them...just ask Cleveland.
You might think that Burns was just cherry picking from the Hall of Fame when envisioning his team...but odds are they were still playing when Burns made his original lineup. Pie Traynor is another such "active" great that Burns kept in mind for a future team.
Today there are endless debates over who the best Shortstop ever is. Could Jeter, Ripken and Rodriguez hang with the old time greats? Burns didn't need to have those debates when envisioning his team, because at the time all he knew about was Honus Wagner.
I'm not sure if Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned yet way back when Burns composed his fantasy lineup, but the Springfield softball league would be the perfect loophole to get Jackson back on the baseball field.
Harry Hooper is yet another Hall of Fame talent on the Burns ringer team, but this is a rare chance to get a player with an accurate classic logo that the Bot actually recognizes. So the Red Sox get some love. Should the Bot ever update with all the proper old school logos, I'd love to go back and do non-HoF versions of all the above players.
The final member of the team was Jim Creighton, who never played in the baseball world as we know it...because he died in 1862, highlighting just how out of touch Burns was with the modern game. Not only that, but Creighton was penciled in to play Rightfield, despite being a Pitcher. I'm sure he was included just for Smithers to make a joke about how long the player was dead. That would make for a good mishap to befall him where Burns refuses to realize that he has no Rightfielder because the dead can't play.
So those 9 men would have made for a great lineup for the softball title game, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. Heck, the team that Smithers assembled wasn't even the 2nd version of the team. Originally players like Ryne Sandberg, Nolan Ryan and Carlton Fisk were asked, but they declined to do the episode, which likely explains why the Yankees and Red Sox got multiple representatives on that all star team.
