“MoneyBART”

“MoneyBART” represents a foreign element in a new environment two times over: Lisa Simpson in the world of baseball and the language of sabermetrics in America’s pastime.  Just as baseball “purists” cried foul when Bill James, Paul DePodesta, and Billy Beane ushered in the era of moneyball, Bart bemoans what happens to his Little League team when Lisa becomes the manager, even though the Isotots move up to the top of the standings.  Lisa knows nothing about baseball until she becomes enamored with sabermetrics.  “It’s a triumph of number crunching over the human spirit!”  Bart wonders what happened to the game he grew up with, and as with real-life baseball traditionalists, it is not clear that he really knows what makes baseball great, bemoaning as he does the “misty ballparks” of corporate-owned Enron Field and “Pac-Bell, then SBC, now AT&T Park.”  There is a good deal of yin and yang to baseball, and the ability of the writers of The Simpsons to recognize all of its diverse elements make “MoneyBART” one of the most joyful episodes in a while.  The Simpsons-specific gags weaved into the baseball moments were on target as well (Milhouse reveals that his parents are brother and sister, he thinks; Nelson reminds Bart that they are no longer cellar dwellers – “well, at least the team isn’t”; and this gem from the baseball announcer – “speaking of Homer, Bart’s father’s name is, you guessed it, not on my fact sheet”).

Next up: Bob’s Burgers