This finally happened.
To say that Caleb and I love it when The Simpsons take on baseball would be an understatement. But taking on baseball and sabermetrics in the same episode? While finally granting Mike Scioscia his wish to reprise his role from "Homer at the Bat"? And while tipping the cap to Bill James ("I made baseball as fun as doing your taxes!")?
Amazing.
Granted, the episode uses some misguided stathead-slamming tropes (most egregiously Professor Frink's ridiculously obscure analysis of Zach Greinke, reminiscent of Tom Selleck's ridiculous self-analysis from Mr. Baseball and pretty much every Murray Chass anti-SABR article ever), but the "guts" guys don't get off any easier, and this seems like a great opportunity for both "sides" to laugh at each other and themselves.
But as an English teacher, my favorite part of the episode turned out to be Homer's response to Marge's "Why do you say such ridiculous things?" question. It was comedy gold even before he pointlessly tacked on "formally" to the end of his run-on sentence-like-thing, but at "formally" I was laughing harder than I've laughed for a long time (and I watched this episode while sick as a dog!).
19 years after "Homer at the Bat," The Simpsons has hit another homer. And yes, I should be very, very ashamed of myself for closing a post with such a terrible pun.
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