Posted on 05/09/2017 6:00:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
He was the most improbable and entertaining of sages, but Casey Stengel's life and the man's boundless love of it still holds up -- even in an era in which baseball, the thinking man's game, has been replaced by brutish football as the national pastime. For ours is an era that may drown us in soulless data while ignoring the zest, the beauty and sheer joy of life.
First, just the facts, ma'am, as Sgt. Joe Friday used to say on a television series back in the long-ago: Yes, there was a time when Casey Stengel, the old professor, was young Casey -- a 19-year-old outfielder and clean-up batter, traditionally fourth in the lineup. He played his first game of pro ball for the Kankakee (Ill.) Kays in the Northern Association even though the team soon got to be known by another name, the Kankakee Lunatics, which is a story in itself. That strange honorific honored the sprawling 119-acre Kankakee State Hospital, formerly the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, just across the street from the ballpark. Its occupants could watch the game from their windows while the fans in the bleachers could watch the occupants watching the game. Was this a great country or not?
"Stengel is one fellow who won't be here next year," a teammate of his named Joe Gilligan prophesied after the ball club won its season opener 7 to 6. How come? Because young Stengel was surely on his way to the majors? "No," responded the astute Gilligan, pointing to the adjoining asylum, "he's going into that building over there." It was only a matter of time, his buddies on the team agreed. For they were well acquainted even then by his remarkable plays in the field and his verbal infelicities off. But if this jug-eared, big-beaked young man was crazy, it was crazy like a fox. For his fractured language made good copy for the local sports pages while his plays earned admiring coverage. And he would go on, in a career that spanned decades, to lead pin-striped teams to seven world championships and 10 appearances in the World Series -- not a bad record for someone who started off as a Kankakee Lunatic.
In professional sports, it doesn't make an athlete's reputation to be known as daffy (remember Daffy Dean?) but it certainly helps. If there is a single term that sums up Casey Stengel in the annals of sport, it is showman. His presence in the lineup could fill a stadium while his wit and wisdom filled more than one book. Long before there was a Yogi Berra, he could knock the hide off a baseball and the socks off the American language.
Yet there was a wisdom to ol' Casey's misnomers that not only entertained but enlightened, as in:
"The secret of managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."
"The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It's that they stay out all night looking for it."
"Most people my age are dead. And you can look it up." It was the touch of ersatz authority in the old joker's pronouncements ("And you can look it up") that put the seal on his verbal authority -- or lack of same.
Connoisseurs of this art couldn't wait to hear what in the world he'd come up with next, as in these gems:
"All right, everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height."
"I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice."
"Old-timers, weekends and airplane landings are alike. If you can walk away from them, they're successful."
"They say you can't do it, but sometimes that doesn't always work."
"There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them."
And so mysteriously, laughably, interminably on, for ol' Casey, like the young one, always left 'em laughing. Or at least completely mystified. On balance, the man was unbalanced -- and it was a delightful thing.
“On balance, the man was unbalanced — and it was a delightful thing.”
Yeah, but the guy won.
So is the liberals and the NeverTrumpers want to call Trump “unbalanced”, I’ll take the winner.
He also said he went to all of his friends’ funerals because he wanted them to come to his.
“Ty Cobb was the best, no one else was even close”.
Casey Stengel to Groucho Marx on “You Bet Your Life”.
Groucho agreed with him.
Curt Gowdey (sp?) had a TV show, “Greatest Sports Legends,” where he interviewed guests. He had Stengel, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle on together. It was a hoot to watch Ford and Mantle grin, snicker and giggle while Casey was pouring out his “Stengelese.”
Photo is from 1962 world series other guy is Alvin Dark; Willie McCovey lines out in the 9th with Willie Mays on 2nd. Google Peanuts on that event, Giants fans had to wait 48 more years.
Some of my favorites were from the “lovable losers” days when Casey was managing the sometimes inept Mets:
After a particularly bad performance by the team Casey was asked what he thought about the team’s execution to which he replied, “I’m in favor of it.”
Casey also once said, “The only thing worse than Mets game is a Mets double-header.”
Sorry, no. Casey Stengel was fired by the New York Yankees following the 1960 World Series in which Pittsburgh upset New York. When New York defeated the San Francisco Giants (managed by Al Dark), Ralph Houk was the manager of the Yankees.
Casey Stengel returned to managing in 1962 as the skipper of the New York Metropolitans. The Mets were one of two National League expansion teams (the other entry was the Houston Colt .45s — later renamed the Astros). The Mets finished last with a record of 40-120 in their inaugural year.
What many overlook about Stengel is that he was an above average player who did his best during October. He batted .393 in World Series competition.
I’ll never forget the time when my mom and dad took me to see the Yankees play the Senators in 1956. Along with a few other kids, I was waiting outside their locker room after the game hoping to get a few autographs when Casey walked out in his street clothes. He just looked at us and said.. “ I ain’t nobody, kids, I ain’t nobody” and just kept walking.
We are poorer for his absence, that’s for certain. He ably represented the American can-do attitude, working hard for everything that he got, and said whatever the Hell he wanted to say (even if it didn’t make much sense). We need more people like him...but I don’t know if we’re making that model anymore.
My favorite quote from the Ol’ Perfessor was “Doesn’t anybody here know how to play this game?”
I use it often, in a different context.
Thank you
You are welcome.
Thank you for posting an article about one baseball’s all-time greats.
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