The Mighty Casey
| "The Mighty Casey" | |
|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 35 |
| Directed by | Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer |
| Written by | Rod Serling |
| Featured music | Stock |
| Production code | 173-3617 |
| Original air date | June 17, 1960 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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"The Mighty Casey" is episode thirty-five of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Its title is a reference to the baseball poem "Casey at the Bat". It originally aired on June 17, 1960 on CBS.
"Mouth" McGarry, the manager of a broken-down baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs on its last legs, allows a robot named Casey to play on his team. Casey has the ability to throw super-fast balls that cannot be hit.
Eventually, after Casey is beaned by a ball and given a physical examination, the National League finds out and rules that Casey must be taken off the team because he is not human. Casey's inventor, Dr. Stillman, gives him an artificial heart to have him classified as human.
Now that Casey has human emotions, he refuses to throw his fast balls anymore. He says that he feels empathy with the batter and does not want to ruin the batter's career by striking him out. With the team sure to fold soon, Dr. Stillman gives McGarry Casey's blueprints as a souvenir. Glancing at them, McGarry suddenly has a brilliant idea, as he runs off after Dr. Stillman to tell him his idea. Rod Serling narrated that McGarry and Dr. Stillman's idea worked where they have a pitching staff of Casey robots.
The baseball scenes were filmed at the Los Angeles version of Wrigley Field, an often-used venue for Hollywood films featuring baseball action scenes. The TV series Home Run Derby was also filmed at Wrigley, and also aired that summer of 1960. The Wrigley footage, with the stands empty, was supplemented by brief clips of stock-footage crowd scenes, from the Polo Grounds and Fenway Park.
According to The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, the entire production was originally filmed with Paul Douglas in the manager role. (Douglas previously played a baseball team manager in the 1951 film, Angels in the Outfield.) On Friday, September 11, 1959, the day after the episode finished shooting, Douglas died. Douglas had been, unbeknownst to anyone, suffering from an incipient coronary during the production; his performance was adversely affected, as on film, Douglas appeared mottled and out-of-breath.
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