Editing The Mighty Casey

{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}

{{Infobox television episode
| series         = [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]
| image          = 
| caption        = 
| season         = 1
| episode        = 35
| director       = * [[Robert Parrish]]
* [[Alvin Ganzer]]
| writer         = [[Rod Serling]]
| music          = Stock
| production     = 173-3617
| airdate        = {{Start date|1960|06|17}}
| guests         = * [[Jack Warden]] as McGarry<ref name="avclub" />
* [[Robert Sorrells]] as Casey<ref name="avclub" />
* [[Abraham Sofaer]] as Dr. Stillman<ref name="avclub" />
* Alan Dexter as Beasley
* [[Don O'Kelly]] as Monk
* [[Jonathan Hole]] as the Team Doctor
* Rusty Lane as the Commissioner
| prev           = [[The After Hours]]
| next           = [[A World of His Own]]
| season_article = The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 1)
| episode_list   = List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes
}}
"'''The Mighty Casey'''" is episode thirty-five of the American television [[anthology series]] ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''.<ref name="avclub">{{Cite web |url=https://www.avclub.com/the-twilight-zone-the-mighty-casey-a-world-of-his-o-1798171317 |title=The Twilight Zone: "The Mighty Casey"/"A World Of His Own" |last=Handlen |first=Zack |website=TV Club |date=28 January 2012 |language=en-US |access-date=2019-05-25}}</ref> Its title is a reference to the baseball poem "[[Casey at the Bat]]". It originally aired on June 17, 1960, on [[CBS]].<ref name="avclub" /> The episode was written by [[Rod Serling]],<ref name="fangraphs">{{Cite web |url=https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-live/pop-culture-and-the-pastime-baseball-and-the-twilight-zone/ |title=Pop culture and the Pastime: Baseball and the Twilight Zone |website=The Hardball Times |date=9 January 2013 |access-date=2019-05-25}}</ref> and directed by [[Robert Parrish]] and [[Alvin Ganzer]].

==Opening narration==
{{cquote|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.<ref name="CBR">{{Cite web |url=https://www.cbr.com/twilight-zone-paul-richards-rod-serling-death/ |title=TV Legends: The Twilight Zone Episode That Featured an Actual Dying Man |date=2018-10-14 |website=CBR |language=en-US |access-date=2019-05-25}}</ref>}}

==Plot==
"Mouth" McGarry, the manager of a broken-down baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs on its last legs, is introduced to Dr. Stillman, an inventor who built a robot named Casey to play on the team. Casey has the ability to throw super-fast balls, super-slow balls, and extreme curveballs 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. Dr. Stillman then installs an artificial heart for Casey.

However, due to his new heart, Casey now possesses human emotions. He refuses to throw his fast balls anymore, saying that he feels empathy with the batter and does not want to ruin the batter's career by striking him out, and quits baseball to become a social worker. With the team sure to fold soon, Dr. Stillman gives McGarry Casey's blueprints as a souvenir. Glancing at them, McGarry suddenly has an idea, and runs after Dr. Stillman to tell him. Rumors later surface intimating that McGarry has used the blueprints to build a world-champion team of Casey robots.<ref name="fangraphs" />

==Closing narration==
{{cquote|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.<ref name="CBR" />}}

==Production==
According to ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic'' by Martin Grams, the entire production was originally filmed with [[Paul Douglas (actor)|Paul Douglas]] in the manager role. (Douglas previously played a baseball team manager in the 1951 film ''[[Angels in the Outfield (1951 film)|Angels in the Outfield]]''.)<ref name="CBR" />  On Friday, September 11, 1959, the day after the episode finished shooting, Douglas died. Douglas had been, unbeknownst to anyone, suffering from an incipient [[Myocardial infarction|coronary]] during the production;<ref name="CBR" /> his performance was adversely affected, as on film, Douglas appeared mottled and out-of-breath.

Writer and executive producer Rod Serling felt that the circumstances of Douglas' death cast a pall over what was supposed to be a light-hearted comedic episode, and decided that a re-shoot was necessary. CBS refused to finance any re-shooting, so consequently, virtually the entire production was reshot at the expense of Rod Serling's Cayuga Productions with [[Jack Warden]] in the team manager's role.<ref name="fangraphs" /> The other roles were not recast, and as much footage from the original filming was used as possible, including (in the episode's final shot) a scene in which Douglas is seen in the distance, with his back to the camera, as the manager. Original director [[Alvin Ganzer]] was not available for the re-shoot, so Robert Parrish was brought to complete shooting; both are credited as directors on the finished episode.

In Serling's original first-draft script (and in his short-story adaptation that appeared in the 1960 anthology, ''Stories from The Twilight Zone''), the team was supposed to have been the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]] (their stadium in the original story was "Tebbet's Field"), who, like the fictitious "Hoboken Zephyrs", moved west in 1958 to become the [[Los Angeles Dodgers]]. The closing narration refers to the original draft: at the time of broadcast, the Dodgers had beaten the [[Chicago White Sox]] to win [[1959 World Series|the previous year's World Series]], doing so with a dominant pitching staff featuring [[Don Drysdale]], [[Johnny Podres]] and a young [[Sandy Koufax]].

The baseball scenes were filmed at the Los Angeles version of [[Wrigley Field (Los Angeles)|Wrigley Field]], an often-used venue for Hollywood films featuring baseball scenes.<ref name="fangraphs" /> The TV series ''[[Home Run Derby (TV series)|Home Run Derby]]'' was also filmed at Wrigley, and also aired that summer of 1960.<ref name="fangraphs" /> The Wrigley footage, with the stands empty, was supplemented by brief clips of stock-footage crowd scenes, from the [[Polo Grounds]] and [[Fenway Park]].

==Further reading==
* DeVoe, Bill. (2008). ''Trivia from The Twilight Zone''. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. {{ISBN|978-1-59393-136-0}}
* Grams, Martin. (2008). ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic''. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. {{ISBN|978-0-9703310-9-0}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb episode|0734661}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mighty Casey, The}}
[[Category:1960 American television episodes]]
[[Category:The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) season 1 episodes]]
[[Category:Television episodes about robots]]
[[Category:Baseball mass media]]
[[Category:Television episodes written by Rod Serling]]
[[Category:Television episodes set in New Jersey]]