This episode is a pure comedy.\u00a0 The Hoboken Zephyrs are supposedly a very bad NL baseball team residing solidly in the standings cellar.\u00a0 Their Manager, McGarry (played by Jack Warden) is informed by the General Manager, Beasley that he is going to be out of work if the team doesn\u2019t improve ASAP.\u00a0 Along comes a young left-handed pitcher named Casey and his \u201cmentor\u201d Dr. Stillman.\u00a0 After displaying unhittable stuff McGarry wants to hire him on the spot.\u00a0 When he asks Dr. Stillman for Casey\u2019s age, Stillman tells him that he\u2019s three weeks old.\u00a0 He further explains that Casey is a robot that Stillman built.<\/p>\n
But McGarry is completely unconcerned with the details of his star prospect\u2019s ancestry and the team goes on an extended winning streak which brings them to the very brink of pennant contention.\u00a0 But fate steps in.\u00a0 Casey gets beaned and for the sake of safety he is brought to the hospital for a checkup.\u00a0 The league doctor says that Casey seems fine but upon trying to take his pulse he discovers that Casey has no heart.\u00a0 Dr. Stillman confirms this and elaborates that Casey is a robot.\u00a0 The league doctor reports back to the National League that Casey isn\u2019t human and the League official reads the pertinent baseball regulation.\u00a0 \u201cThe game is to be played with nine men.\u201d\u00a0 It is reinforced that if Casey hasn\u2019t got a heart then he can\u2019t be on the team.\u00a0 McGarry objects, but Beasley hasn\u2019t got a heart and he owns forty percent of the team.\u201d\u00a0 But the official is adamant; no heart, no play.\u00a0 Dr. Stillman intercedes and says that if Casey needs a heart in order to qualify then he\u2019ll install one. \u00a0\u00a0Everyone is satisfied and the modification is made.\u00a0 At the next game, Casey shows up with his new heart.\u00a0 He is smiling and happy as compared to his former robotic blank stare.\u00a0 Dr. Stillman is pleased with the more human aspect of his creation and everyone is jubilant.<\/p>\n
Casey is shelled inning after inning.\u00a0 After the game McGarry questions him about why he was so awful.\u00a0 His answer was that his new heart meant that he had empathy for the opposing hitters and didn\u2019t want to be responsible for their lack of success.\u00a0 So, he let them win.\u00a0 Dr. Stillman comes over to McGarry and tells him he thinks Casey should change careers to social work and gives McGarry a copy of Casey\u2019s blue print as a memento.\u00a0 Looking at it McGarry has an idea and he goes running across the outfield to catch Stillman and suggest an idea for using his robots in baseball.\u00a0 It ends with a voice over by Serling talking about a certain East Coast team that moved to California and suddenly had a pitching staff that was basically unbeatable (meaning the actual Dodgers who were the team the Zephyrs were a stand in for).<\/p>\n
This is a hokey joke.\u00a0 When Rod Serling made a later series called the Night Gallery he would have a couple of longer stories and then a short vignette, usually of a comic nature.\u00a0 This story in a slightly more condensed form would have been perfect for that kind of treatment.<\/p>\n
But as you know I prefer the more light-hearted approach to sf&f.\u00a0 I especially liked the line about the GM not having a heart.\u00a0 And the Dodgers were the team my family (well most of them) followed until they left New York the year I was born.\u00a0 For sentimental and aesthetic reasons, I\u2019ll give this a B but I can understand if the more serious readers disagree.\u00a0 To each his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This episode is a pure comedy.\u00a0 The Hoboken Zephyrs are supposedly a very bad NL baseball team residing solidly in the standings cellar.\u00a0 Their Manager,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,240,1661],"tags":[38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,1746,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-6239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-the-mighty-casey","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n