Nuclear Powered Baseball

The Simpsons and baseball. Since its debut in 1989 (that's back in the last century ), The Simpsons has run for 27 seasons and (back in 2009) became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series. Though it would be considered sacrilege in some circles, some might even see it as a national pastime of its own.

The series has a long history with baseball and in Season Three, the episode "Homer at the Bat" aired, on February 20, 1992. Co-editor Emily Hawks writes in her Introduction, "To see so many of the biggest MLB stars of the day in Simpsonian animated form -- Ken Griffey, Jr., Ozzie Smith, and Jose Canseco, just to name a few -- seemed the most exciting thing in the world to this '90s kid. And the fact that they all lent their own voices to the parts seemed even cooler. It may have also been one of my first glimpses into baseball's early days. As a kid, I had no idea that Mr. Burns' dream squad -- comprised of colorful names like Shoeless Joe Jackson, Pie Traynor, and Napoleon Lajoie--actually referenced real players. Those seemed like decidedly fabricated names to me "

They weren't. They were real ballplayers. And, one way or another, Simpsons writers have worked the names of 68 major-league ballplayers into one episode or another. Football's Joe Namath, Warren Sapp, and Johnny Unitas have appeared in shows. So have basketballers Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Yao Ming, and Dennis Rodman. Without doing exhaustive research, we believe there may be more baseball players than the other pro sports combined.

Some 27 members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) have collaborated in Nuclear Powered Baseball to tell the stories of each player--past and present--featured in the classic Simpsons episode. The biographies compiled here take the players well beyond their two-dimensional caricatures, and present a well-rounded view of their lives in baseball. We've also included a few very entertaining takes on the now-famous "Homer at the Bat" episode from prominent baseball writers Jonah Keri, Erik Malinowski, and Bradley Woodrum. As an added bonus, we've also included Joe Posnanski's piece on the Season 22 sabermetric-themed episode, "MoneyBart."

TOC:

Introduction by Emily Hawks

The Making of "Homer at the Bat" by Erik Malinowski

The Burns-Smithers Question by Bradley Woodrum

Wade Boggs by Steve West

Jose Canseco by Geoffrey Dunn

Roger Clemens by Frederick C. Bush

Ken Griffey Jr. by Emily Hawks

Don Mattingly by James Lincoln Ray

Steve Sax by Alan Cohen

Mike Scioscia by Susan Lantz

Ozzie Smith by Charles F. Faber

Darryl Strawberry by Shawn Morris

Cap Anson by David Fleitz

Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown by Cindy Thomson

Jim Creighton by John Thorn

Honus Wagner by Jan Finkel

Pie Traynor by James Forr

Harry Hooper by Paul Zingg and E. A. Reed

Nap Lajoie by David Jones and Stephen Constantelos

Gabby Street by Joseph Wancho

Joe Jackson by David Fleitz

Homer Simpson by Bill Nowlin

"Homer at the Bat" -- the game by Bill Nowlin

Ryan Tosses No-Hitter; Cash Wields Table Leg by Gregory H. Wolf

The New Springfield Nine by Jonah Keri

The Simpsons Baseball Edition by Joe Posnanski

Baseball People Mentioned in The Simpsons