The Simpsons: 10 Fates Worse Than Death

Homer at the Bat is one of the strongest early episodes of The Simpsons, featuring an all-star cast of baseball giants. One such unlucky giant is Steve Sax, who may have bitterly regretted ever accepting Mr Burns' offer of a job by the end.

Hired as... Burns will get to that later, he becomes eligible as a member of staff to play on the Nuclear Power Plant's softball team. He leaves his part-time gig as a stand-up Bass player to take on the role, delighted by the invite. He runs into trouble almost immediately though as he is driving through the city at night, thinking of moving to Springfield after retirement.

Lou and Eddie pull the star over, taking his details and discovering that he is from New York. They confer while he is ultra-polite to them. This rubs them up the wrong way, with Lou pulling his firearm on the man. Barely hours later, he is chucked into a jail cell while Chief Wiggum congratulates the two men.

Thanks to their quick thinking, Sax faces six consecutive life sentences, accused as he is of every unsolved murder in New York for the past several years.

Worse than this still, he doesn't even get to play baseball with the team.