The catcher contemplates his smoking glove.
Rod Serling: What you're looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major league ball club known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. We're back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League, and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make believe, it has to start this way: once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though he's not yet on the field, you're about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey.
Air date: June 17, 1960
"Mouth" McGarry (Jack Warden) is the beaten-down manager of the Hoboken Zephyrs, a terrible baseball team perpetually stuck in last place and nowhere near ready for a pennant. Shortly after he's nearly fired, Mouth is visited by a scientist, Dr. Stillman (Abraham Sofaer), who shows up at the field during practice. The doctor brings with him an "associate" named Casey (Robert Sorrells), a young left-handed pitcher. As Casey takes to the mound for a tryout, Dr. Stillman reveals to Mouth that Casey is actually a robot, Dr. Stillman himself having invented him just three weeks ago. While in the process of dismissing Dr. Stillman as a lunatic, Casey starts pitching, and shows himself to be supernaturally talented, throwing unbelievable pitches that batters are unable to even touch. Mouth immediately signs Casey to a contract, and his skills lead the Zephyrs to a winning streak. Unfortunately, a contractual tidbit points out that because Casey isn't alive, he's forbidden to play. Mouth tries to work around this tidbit by having Stillman give Casey a heart, but now Casey refuses to play because of his fears of striking out the other players, ruining their reputations.
The Mighty Tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: Possibly robotics. But in any case, emotions apparently come from the heart, as Casey starts smiling and feeling compassion after he gets a robotic heart.
- Artistic License – History: There was never a Major League team called the Hoboken Zephyrs, or any big-league team in Hoboken ever. This might be a subtle Historical In-Joke however, as the first well-documented game played under the "Knickerbocker Rules" of baseball (three strikes for an out, three outs for an inning, a differentiation between fair and foul ground, etc) took place in Hoboken in 1846.
- Baseball Episode: Mouth McGarry, the frustrated manager of a last-place baseball team, gets a robot pitcher who quickly propels the team to the big leagues.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The ending narration implies that the Los Angeles Dodgers of the late 1950s and early 1960s had a pitching lineup composed of robots. Those pitchers included Sandy Koufax (hailed as one of the greatest pitchers in all of baseball's history) and the almost-as-talented Don Drysdale and Johnny Podres.
- Bittersweet Ending: Giving Casey a heart as an attempted Loophole Abuse ends up giving him an impairing case of empathy for the opposing team and the Zephyrs lose their golden goose. But Mouth decides to continue the robot player scheme with Dr. Stillman and moves to Los Angeles, where they made it work right.
- Chromosome Casting: This is another Twilight Zone episode with an all-male cast.
- Crushing Handshake: Mouth winces and moans in pain when Casey gives him a bone-crushing handshake. It's the second indication we get that something isn't natural about Casey (the first being when a baseball hits him on the head and he barely flinches).
- Gone Horribly Wrong: An instance of the trope that's not fatal, but still backfires big time for the creator: Dr. Stillman giving Casey a heart was just an attempt to keep him within the rules of who can play baseball so he could continue to help the Zephyrs win. Instead, he gets an extremely crippling case of empathy for the rival team's players and he can no longer play worth a damn.
- Here We Go Again!: The end of the episode has Mouth, who has just gotten his hands on Casey's blueprints, chasing after Dr. Stillman and pleading with him. Serling's closing narration indicates that the Zephyrs moved west and won the pennant with a rotation of robot pitchers.
- Imagine Spot: Mouth briefly visualizes a championship pennant flying from the flagpole of the stadium.
- Lighter and Softer: The episode is a baseball parody that focuses on a robotic pitcher who throws outrageous pitches accompanied by cartoonish whistling noises, so it counts.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title refers to the 1888 poem "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer.
- Loophole Abuse: Once some umpires catch wise about the fact Casey is a robot and wave contractual bylaws in his face, Mouth looks over the rules and tells Dr. Stillman to give Casey a heart so he will still be classified as a living being and can continue playing. It backfires because Casey's new heart gives him a crippling case of empathy.
- Misspelling Out Loud: Mouth tells Dr. Stillman never to say the word "R-O-B-B-O-T-T."
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mouth McGarry is based on Leo "The Lip" Durocher, and the Hoboken Zephyrs are based on the Brooklyn Dodgers. Serling also says the Zephyrs eventually moved out west. The Dodgers had moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles five years before this episode aired.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Surely building an unbeatable robot pitcher is flagrant cheating, but Mouth comes off as sympathetic in his desire for his players to be champions.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Mouth looks at the skies above and asks them "Why do you have to pick on me all the time?" after believing that he's talking to a nutcase claiming his new pitcher is a robot he invented, as well as already having to deal with an inept team.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Casey looks just like a human being. The only tells are his flat manner of speaking and his rigid gait.
- Robot Athlete: The robotic Casey becomes the pitcher for the Hoboken Zephyrs. After he has a heart installed and can't bring himself to strike out members of the opposing team, Mouth has Stillman create a series of robot pitchers to help the Zephyrs win championships.
- Spinning Paper: Used for exposition to recount Casey's winning streak.
- Stock Footage: Footage of crowd scenes from the Polo Grounds and Fenway Park is shown during the montage of the Zephyrs' winning streak.
- Stock Sound Effects: A fair amount of cartoonish noises are heard during the episode.
- Verbal Irony: "He pitches like nothing human," says the catcher after Casey's first tryout.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: When it's revealed that Casey is a robot he invented, Dr. Stillman says quite casually that he previously built a robotic gourmet cook, but deactivated her after he started gaining too much weight.
- Win One for the Gipper: Mouth gives an emotional Rousing Speech after Casey is late for the game because he's getting a heart, saying "Go out there, Zephyrs, and win this one for the big guy." Subverted when Casey shows up in the locker room while Mouth is talking.
Rod Serling: Once upon a time, there was a major league baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs, who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thererafter wound up in oblivion. There's a rumor, unsubstantiated, of course, that a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of world championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. Of course, none of them smiled very much, but it happens to be a fact that they pitched like nothing human. And if you're interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under 'B' for Baseball – in the Twilight Zone.
