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Casey Stengel
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| Biography: Casey Stengel |
Baseball's clown genius, Casey Stengel (1890-1975) was known as much for his hilarious double-talk ashe was for managing the New York Yankees and Mets. Nicknamed "The Old Perfessor," Stengel hid afierce competitive drive behind his practical jokesand rambling monologues. His 14-year playing career was overshadowed by his 25-year career managing some of the best and worst teams in history.
When Yankees owner George Weiss picked Casey Stengel to take over as manager in 1948, reporters ridiculed his choice. During Stengel's playing days, he was known more for his antics than his baseball acumen. In nine years managing the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves, his teams had nine losing seasons. But Weiss's choice proved inspired. Stengel became the most popular and influential manager in baseball, a star in New York City and a national celebrity. Along the way, he won more World Series games than any manager in history.
Played the Clown
Charles Dillon Stengel was the last of three children born in Kansas City, Missouri on July 30, 1890, to Jennie Jordan, a cook, and Louis E. Stengel, an insurance agent. At Central High School, he played football, basketball and baseball. A left-handed thrower, Stengel pitched and also played third base and second base, positions rarely handled by lefties.
Stengel planned to be a dentist and went to dental college in the off-season, while playing ball in the summer. After playing for the semi-pro Kansas City Red Sox in 1908 and 1909, Stengel began his professional career in 1910 as a pitcher with Kankakee, Illinois, in the Northern Association. Soon he switched to the outfield, even though he had rarely played there before. Stengel spent five years in the minor leagues, playing for four teams. Even in those early days, he was a clown. During one game at Montgomery, Alabama, in 1912, he disappeared into a drainage hole in the outfield and popped up just in time to catch a fly ball.
Stengel debuted in the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers near the end of the 1912 season. In his first game he had four hits and a walk, and in his first week he batted .478. The Sporting News exclaimed: "Charlie Stengel has come into the league with a tremendous crash, and appears to be the real thing."
Stengel soon acquired the nickname "KC" because he had grown up in Kansas City. Also at the time, the famous poem "Casey at the Bat" was a hit on the vaudeville circuit. When Stengel struck out a caustic fan might yell: "Hey, there's Casey at the bat!" From then on Stengel was Casey.
Stengel was a speedy, sometimes spectacular out-fielder. He worked hard on his fielding, coming to Ebbets Field early and bouncing balls off the right field wall to learn the caroms. He was one of the first outfielder to wear sunglasses. As a hitter, he showed occasional power but was streaky, with long slumps. "I was very erratic," Stengel said in his 1961 autobiography Casey at the Bat. "Some days I was amazing, some days I wasn't."
During much of his career Stengel was a part-time player. Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson rarely let him play against left-handed pitchers, an early example of platooning, a system Stengel would later popularize as a manager. Stengel spent six seasons with Brooklyn, including an appearance in the World Series in 1916, then two with the Pittsburgh Pirates and two more with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Stengel's antics overshadowed his abilities. Sometimes he'd draw laughs by catching easy fly balls behind his back. In 1919, Stengel was playing for Pittsburgh at Ebbets Field. He doffed his cap to the crowd and out flew a sparrow. He repeated the trick in 1920 in Philadelphia.
In 1921, Stengel was being traded to the powerhouse New York Giants. Legendary Giants manager John McGraw, a fiery, brilliant tactician, took Stengel under his wing. McGraw often used Stengel as a first-base coach and had him work with younger players. Stengel often visited McGraw's home and talked baseball.
In 1922 and 1923, Stengel hit .368 and .339 and appeared in two World Series with the Giants. He was a hero in the 1923 Series, winning the first game with a twoout, inside-the-park, ninth-inning home run and scoring the only run of the third game with a home run into the bleachers. Stengel's were the first World Series home runs ever hit in Yankee Stadium. In his three World Series games as a player, Stengel hit a robust .393.
Despite McGraw's affection for Stengel, he could see that leg injuries were slowing him. He traded his protégéto the Boston Braves. Stengel retired as a player in 1925, ending a career during which he batted .284 and averaged only 300 at-bats a season.
Ups and Downs
In 1924, Stengel married Edna Lawson, an accountant he met at a ball game in 1923. They established a home in Glendale, California, where Lawson's father was a contractor. They had no children. Stengel poured his fatherly instincts into working with hundreds of young players.
In 1925, Stengel took his first managerial job, at Worcester in the Eastern League. In 1926, he took over at Toledo, an American Association club. He managed the Mud Hens for six years, bringing the franchise its first championship in 1927, and hitting a game-winning grand slam home run as a pinch-hitter in one game. But the club faltered after that. In Toledo, Stengel had frequent run-ins with umpires. And one day he forgot to put his pants on before going on the field for pre-game practice. From then on, fans yelled, "Casey, where are your pants?"
Stengel returned to New York in 1932 as a coach for Brooklyn. He took over as manager in 1934. During his three years there, the Dodgers were a losing team, but Stengel kept the fans entertained. In 1938, Stengel began a six-year stint with the Boston Braves, but the club finished seventh four years in a row.
In 1944, Stengel returned to the minor leagues to manage Milwaukee. He took over at Kansas City in 1945, and ran the Oakland team from 1946 through 1948. All were minor-league teams in cities that later would have major-league clubs. In his autobiography, Casey at the Bat: The Story of My Life in Baseball, Stengel admitted there were "half a dozen times … that I was going to quit baseball altogether."
A Yankee Institution
Nothing in Stengel's career suggested what lay ahead when he took the helm of the Yankees in 1949. To baseball's premiere club, Stengel brought only a lackluster managerial record and a reputation for silliness. But he soon made his mark. Despite an injury which sidelined Joe DiMaggio for 65 games, Stengel brought the Yankees a world championship in his first season.
During the 12 years Stengel managed the Yankees, they appeared in ten World Series, winning seven of them. Stengel holds the record for most World Series wins by a manager, 37, and most Series games managed, 63. He became a Yankee institution, as famous as his star players, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra.
Stengel may not have invented platooning, but he popularized it. Until his Yankee days, most clubs stayed with a set lineup day in and day out. Stengel juggled lineups regularly, often playing a catcher in the outfield or an out-fielder at first base, trying to get the most out of his 25-man roster and allowing slumping or injured players to rest.
Players had mixed feelings about Stengel. Clubhouse meetings might last an hour or more, with Stengel talking non-stop. "He confused a lot of players," complained star shortstop Phil Rizzuto. He also confused reporters, but they learned to love him. With his tortured syntax that became known as "Stengelese," the beak-nosed manager made great copy. He became a national celebrity, the subject of features in popular magazines, and a legend in his own time. Stengel was a clownish philosopher who proved winning and having fun were compatible.
Stengel anecdotes are abundant. One time, Stengel went to the mound to remove a pitcher. "I'm not tired," said the pitcher. Stengel replied: "I'm tired of you." Watching Jerry Lumpe in batting practice he told reporters: "He looks like the greatest hitter in the world until you play him." Another time he sat down next to Bob Cerv and told him: "Nobody knows this, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City."
In vintage Stengelese, he once said of a speedy, weak-hitting player: "That feller runs splendid but he needs help at the plate, which coming from the country chasing rabbits all winter gives him strong legs, although he broke one falling out of a tree, which shows you can't tell, and when a curve ball comes he waves at it, and if pitchers don't throw curves you have no pitching staff, so how is a manager going to know whether to tell boys to fall out of trees and break legs so he can run fast even if he can't hit a curve ball?"
Stengel often performed clubhouse routines, practical jokes and pantomimes, one time sliding across a Detroit hotel lobby to illustrate his game-winning 1923 Series home run. Comedian George Gobel said: "If he turned pro, he'd put us all out of business." In Casey: The Life and Legend of Charles Dillon Stengel, biographer Joseph Durso summarized Stengel as "a national figure, an average player, a controversial coach… a mixture of Santa Claus and Jimmy Durante as he duck-walked out to home plate with his lineup card."
Rizzuto said Stengel "had two tempers, one for the public and writers, and one for the players under him. The players were frequently dressed down in the dugout and clubhouse. He could charm the shoes off you, if he wanted to, but he could also be rough." Stengel had plenty of other critics, too. A frequent charge was that he "over-managed" players. Some said anybody could have won with the great Yankee clubs of the 1950s.
In 1958, Stengel testified before a United States Senate committee which was investigating baseball's anti-trust exemption. His 45-minute, 7,000-word "Stengelese" monologue had senators and reporters scratching their heads and laughing uproariously. Sports Illustrated called the testimony "an amazingly frank, cheerful, shrewd, patriotic address that left the senators stunned, bewildered, and delighted."
After the 1960 season, Yankee officials announced they were letting Stengel go. Club executive Dan Topping explained later: "I'm just sorry Casey isn't fifty years old… . It's best for the future to make a change." Casey said: "I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again."
Casey turned down an offer to manage the Detroit Tigers. Then, at 74, he signed a contract to manage a new team, the New York Mets. Talking about his age and his health at a press conference, he noted: "Most people my age are dead at the present time." The Mets wanted Stengel as a distraction. "The idea was that the Mets would entertain the public with a kind of Circus Maximus," Durso wrote. "The ringleader: Casey Stengel."
On taking the reins, Stengel announced: "Come see my amazin' Mets, which in some cases have only played semi-pro ball." The name stuck, and the Mets became known as the "Amazin's," because of how frequently and ingeniously they lost. During Stengel's four years, the Mets won 194 games and lost 452. The zanier and more inept the club grew, the more attendance soared. Stengel often mocked his own players. "I been in this game a hundred years but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before," he said.
After Stengel suffered a broken hip in 1965, he retired at the age of 75. His career as a baseball manager spanned 25 years and included three bad ball clubs and one great club. His teams won 1,905 games and lost 1,842. The baseball writers waived the standard five-year waiting rule and immediately elected Stengel unanimously to the Hall of Fame. Stengel died of lymphatic cancer in Glendale, California on September 29, 1975.
Further Reading
Alexander, Charles, John McGraw, Penguin, 1988.
Creamer, Robert W., Stengel: His Life and Times, Dell, 1984.
Durso, Joseph, Casey: The Life and Legend of Charles Dillon Stengel, Prentice-Hall, 1967.
McLean, Norman, Casey Stengel, Drake, 1976.
Seymour, Harold, Baseball: The Golden Age, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Stengel, Casey, and Harry Paxton, Casey at the Bat: The Story of My Life in Baseball, Random House, 1961.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Casey Stengel |
Stengel, Casey (Charles Dillon Stengel), 1891-1975, American baseball player and manager, b. Kansas City, Mo. Stengel began playing professional baseball in 1910, and from 1912 to 1925 he played with the Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston clubs of the National League. Here he compiled a lifetime major-league batting average of .284. After 1925 he managed baseball teams in the American Association and the Pacific Coast League. In 1949 he became manager of the New York Yankees of the American League, and under his astute leadership the Yankees won ten pennants (1949-53, 1955-58, and 1960) and seven world championships. The colorful "Perfesser" holds a spectacular major-league record for managing his team to five consecutive pennants and five consecutive world championships. A colorful figure, especially noted for his conversational ability, Stengel managed the New York Mets of the National League from 1962 through 1965. Stengel was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.
Bibliography
See his autobiography (1961); biography by J. Durso (1967).
| Quotes By: Casey Stengel |
Quotes:
"The trick is growing up without growing old."
"The best ballplayer's the one who doesn't think he made good. He keeps trying to convince you."
"They say you can't do it, but sometimes it doesn't always work."
"Going to bed with a woman never hurt a ball player. It's staying up all night looking for them that does you in."
"Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits."
"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."
See more famous quotes by
Casey Stengel
| Wikipedia: Casey Stengel |
| Casey Stengel | |
|---|---|
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| Outfielder, Manager | |
| Born: July 30, 1890 Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Died: September 29, 1975 (aged 85) Glendale, California |
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| Batted: Left | Threw: Left |
| MLB debut | |
| September 17, 1912 for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| May 19, 1925 for the Boston Braves | |
| Career statistics | |
| Batting average | .284 |
| Home runs | 60 |
| Runs batted in | 535 |
| Teams | |
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As Player
As Manager |
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| Career highlights and awards | |
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As Player
As Manager
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| Member of the National | |
 Baseball Hall of Fame |
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| Induction | 1966 |
| Election Method | Veteran's Committee |
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (July 30, 1890 – September 29, 1975), nicknamed "The Old Professor", was an American major league baseball player and manager from 1912 until 1965. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.
Stengel was born in Kansas City, and was originally nicknamed "Dutch", a common nickname at that time for Americans of German ancestry. After his major league career started, he acquired the nickname "Casey", which originally came from the initials of his hometown ("K. C."), which evolved into "Casey", influenced by the wide popularity of the poem Casey at the Bat. In the 1950s, sportswriters dubbed him with yet another nickname, "The Old Professor", for his sharp wit and his ability to talk at length on anything baseball-related.
Although his baseball career spanned a number of teams and cities, he is primarily associated with clubs in New York City. Between playing and managing, he was connected with all four of New York's major league clubs. He was the first of four men (through the 2007 season) to manage both the Yankees and the Mets. (Yogi Berra, Dallas Green, and Joe Torre are the others. Like Torre, he also managed the Braves and the Dodgers.) He ended his baseball career as the beloved manager for the expansion New York Mets, which won over the hearts of New York due to their "lovable loser" image and the unique character of their veteran leader.
Contents |
Early career
Stengel was athletically inclined and played various sports in grade school and high school, including baseball, football and basketball. He had no particular illusions of sports as a long-term profession, and he had aspirations of a career in dentistry. As described in his autobiography, on pages 58 and 75-76, that he saved enough money from his early minor league experience in 1910-1911 to train to become a dentist. He had some problems due to the lack of left-handed instruments and the training was a struggle. Meanwhile, his minor league career picked up, as he was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers and spent most of the 1912 season playing for the Montgomery, Alabama, club in the Southern Association. He had "a pretty good year" with Montgomery, batting .290 with a reputation as a good base stealer. He was brought up to the Dodgers late in the season, and baseball soon became his primary occupation.
In 1914 he got in touch with his baseball and football coach from Kansas City, Bill Driver, who was the football and basketball coach at the University of Mississippi. Stengel coached the Ole Miss baseball team to a 13-9 record. This is where he earned the nickname "The Professor".
Major League playing career
Stengel was an outfielder on several teams in the National League beginning on September 17, 1912: the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1912-17; the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1918 and 1919; the Philadelphia Phillies in 1920 and part of 1921; the New York Giants from 1921 to 1923; and the Boston Braves in 1924 and 1925. He played in three World Series: in 1916 for the Dodgers and in 1922 and 1923 for the Giants.
He threw left-handed and batted left-handed. His batting average was .284 over 14 major league seasons.
He was a competent player, but by no means a superstar. On July 8, 1958, discussing his career before the United States Senate's Estes Kefauver committee on baseball's antitrust status, he made this observation: "I had many years that I was not so successful as a ballplayer, as it is a game of skill."[1]
On the other hand, he once joked: "I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice."[2]
Nonetheless he had a good World Series in a losing cause in 1923, hitting two home runs (one of which was the first World Series home run in Yankee Stadium history) to win the two games the Giants won in that Series. He was traded to the perennial second-division-dwelling Braves in the off-season, a fact which apparently stung him. Years later he made the pithy comment "It's lucky I didn't hit three home runs in three games, or McGraw would have traded me to the 3-I League."
In 1919 Stengel of the Pittsburgh Pirates was being taunted mercilessly by fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, his old team. Somehow Casey got hold of a sparrow and used it to turn the crowd in his favor. With the bird tucked gently beneath his cap, Casey strutted to the plate amidst a chorus of boos and catcalls. He turned to the crowd, tipped his hat and out flew the sparrow. The jeers turned to cheers, and Casey became an instant favorite.[citation needed]
New York Yankees
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| Casey Stengel's number 37 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1970 |
Stengel became better known for managing than for playing. His first managerial positions were on the Brooklyn Dodgers (1934-1936) and Boston Braves (1938-1943), where he was not very successful, never finishing better than 5th in an 8-team league. As he said in 1958, "I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there is no question I had to leave."[1]
Stengel demonstrated he could be successful as a manager of a team having worthy talent. In 1944, Stengel was hired as the manager of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers, over the strenuous objections of club owner Bill Veeck (who was serving in the South Pacific with the Marines at the time, and therefore unable to prevent the hiring). Veeck was proven wrong as Stengel led the Brewers to the American Association pennant that year. In 1948 Stengel managed the Oakland Oaks to the Pacific Coast League championship. This caught the attention of the New York Yankees, who were looking for a new manager.
Despite a good deal of initial skepticism in the press, Stengel was hired as the skipper of the Yankees in 1949, and finally had a chance for success at the major league level. When he took the reins of the Yankees, he made this observation: "There is less wrong with this team than any team I have ever managed." That would prove to be an understatement.
He and the Yankees swiftly proceeded to win record numbers of championships. Stengel became the only person to manage a team to five consecutive World Series championships (1949-1953), and under his guidance the 1950s Yankees became a juggernaut. After the streak ended with the Yankees failing to win the American League Pennant in 1954, Stengel and the Yanks continued their dominance, going on to win two more World Championships (1956 and 1958), and five more American League Pennants (1955-1958, 1960). As manager of the Yankees, Stengel gained a reputation as one of the game's sharpest tacticians: he platooned left and right-handed hitters extensively (which had become a lost art by the late 1940s), and sometimes pinch hit for his starting pitcher in early innings if he felt a timely hit would break the game open.
Stengel was a master publicist and promoter, especially for his teams. He was a captivating raconteur and especially during the years of success with the Yankees had the New York media eating out of his hand. He became as much of a public figure as many of his star players such as Mantle. He appeared on the cover of national, non-sports, magazines such as Time Magazine. His apparently stream-of-consciousness monologues on all facets of baseball history and tactics (and anything else that took his fancy) became known as "Stengelese" to sportswriters. They also earned him the nickname "The Old Perfesser".
In the spring of 1953, after the Yankees had won four straight World Series victories he made the following observation, which could just as easily have been made by The Perfessor's prize pupil, Yogi Berra: "If we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as smart as we think we are."[3]
Although Stengel benefited from the Yankees' deep pockets and ability to sign players, he was a hands-on manager: The 1949 Yankees were riddled by injuries, and Stengel's platooning abilities played a major role in their championship run. Platooning also played a major role in the 1951 team's World Series run. With Joe DiMaggio declining rapidly and Mickey Mantle yet to become a powerhouse, the Yankees were weak offensively. Stengel, leaving his solid pitching alone, moved players in and out of the line-up, putting good hitters in the line-up in the early innings and benching them for good fielders later. The strategy worked: The Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians for the pennant in September and took the Series from the New York Giants four games to two.[4]
Aside from "Stengelese", Casey's sense of humor would be displayed in various ways. One story is repeated in Lost Ballparks (Lawrence S. Ritter, Viking Studio Books, 1992, p. 35), in which Stengel plays with fans of the Chicago White Sox in 1960, the first year of Comiskey Park's "exploding scoreboard", then a novelty and an annoyance to some visiting teams. The scoreboard would light up, make noise, and shoot off fireworks whenever a Sox player would hit a home run. According to the book, on the Yankees' "first visit" to Chicago that year, Stengel and the Yankees waved some sparklers after Clete Boyer hit a home run. While the sparkler waving actually did happen, it wasn't until the Yankees second visit to Chicago that this took place, a Friday night game on June 17. [1]
After losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series after a ninth-inning game-winning home run by Bill Mazeroski, Stengel was involuntarily retired from the Yankees, because he was believed to be too old to manage. As reported in Ken Burns' PBS video, "Baseball," Stengel remarked that he had been fired for turning 70, and that he would "never make that mistake again." Over the years Stengel's tactical genius kept the Yankees in many games they might have otherwise lost. It was under Stengel's leadership that the Yankees won 10 Pennants and seven world championships in 12 years, from 1949-1960; the only years during that span that they did not win the AL Pennant and appear in the World Series were 1954 and 1959. However, in the 1960 Series, Stengel’s moves allowed a perceived inferior Pittsburgh team to win in seven games. He held Whitey Ford out until Game 3, which only allowed the league's best pitcher to pitch (and win) two games. Art Ditmar started game 1 and he lost. There has never been any logical explanation why Ford didn’t pitch Game 1. He had pitched a couple innings of relief just 3 days earlier, but it had been a week since his last starting assignment. Another “mistake” that Stengel made was pinch hitting for slick fielding but light hitting Clete Boyer early in game 1. This kind of move was typical Stengel and over the years marked his method of success. But the pinch hitter didn’t come through this time and Boyer could be seen slowly and disheartened retreating toward the dugout dragging his bat behind him. This rankled the Yankee brass who wanted to see players like Boyer developed. Young players like Kubek, Richardson, and Boyer made it known they didn’t feel comfortable with Stengel, and he was let go.
Casey's Amazin' Mets
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| Casey Stengel's number 37 was retired by the New York Mets in 1965 |
Stengel was talked out of retirement after one season to manage the New York Mets, at the time an expansion team with no chance of winning many games. Mocking his well-publicized advanced age, when he was hired he said, "It's a great honor to be joining the Knickerbockers", a New York baseball team that had seen its last game around the time of the Civil War.[5]
The Mets proved to be so incompetent that they gave Stengel plenty of fresh Stengelese material for the New York City newspaper writers. "Come see my "Amazin' Mets," Stengel said. "I've been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before." On his three catchers: "I got one that can throw but can't catch, one that can catch but can't throw, and one who can hit but can't do either." Referring to the rookies Ed Kranepool and Greg Goossen in 1964, Stengel observed, "See that fellow over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years he has a chance to be a star. Now, that fellow over there, he's 20, too. In 10 years he has a chance to be 30." Kranepool never became a star, but he did have an 18-year major league career.
However, one of his most famous comments was actually a misquote. After an exasperating loss, he complained, "Can't anybody play this here game?" This colloquial expression was altered and later became the title of Jimmy Breslin's book about the first-year Mets, Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?."[6]
Though his "Amazin'" Mets finished last in a ten-team league all four years, Stengel was a popular figure nonetheless, not least due to his personal charisma. The Mets themselves proved to be as lovable, due in part to Stengel's charisma and the "lovable loser" charm that followed the team around in those days. Fans packed the old Polo Grounds (prior to Shea Stadium being built), many of them bringing along colorful placards and signs with all sorts of sayings on them. Warren Spahn, who had briefly played under Stengel for the 1942 Braves and for the 1965 Mets, commented: "I'm probably the only guy who worked for Stengel before and after he was a genius."[7]
Stengel's retirement, announced on August 30, 1965, followed a fall at Shea Stadium, in which he broke his hip.
Awards
His uniform number 37 has been retired by both the Yankees and the Mets. It is the only number ever to have been issued only once by the Mets. The Yankees retired the number on August 8, 1970, and dedicated a plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park in his memory on July 30, 1976. The plaque reads "Brightened baseball for over 50 years; with spirit of eternal youth; Yankee manager 1949 - 1960 winning 10 pennants and 7 world championships including a record 5 consecutive, 1949 - 1953." In addition to his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, he was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1981.
Stengel is the only person to have worn the uniform (as player or manager) of all four Major League Baseball teams in New York City in the 20th century: The New York Giants (as a player), the Brooklyn Dodgers (as both a player and a manager), the New York Yankees (as a manager), and the New York Mets (also as a manager). Of this factoid, Stengel would often say, "You can look it up."
In 2009, in an awards segment on the MLB Network titled "The Prime 9," Stengel was named "The Greatest Character of The Game." He received this award for not only his playful personality on the field, but also his off-field contributions to the community.
Death
Casey was admitted to Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California on September 14, 1975 after feeling ill. It was there that he learned he had cancer of the lymph glands. He died there of cancer 15 days later on September 29, 1975. Stengel was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. His wife, Edna, whom he had married in 1924, died three years later and was interred adjacent to him. A plaque at the cemetery reads in part "For over sixty years one of America’s folk heroes who contributed immensely to the lore and language of our country’s national pastime, baseball".
The Casey Stengel Plaza outside Shea Stadium's Gate E was named after him, as is the New York City Transit's Casey Stengel Depot across the street from Citi Field.
Notes
- ^ a b Einstein, Charles. The Third Fireside Book of Baseball. New York; Simon and Schuster, 1968, p.434
- ^ The Official Site of Casey Stengel
- ^ Ira Berkow and Jim Kaplan. The Gospel According to Casey. New York; St. Martin's Press, 1992, p.120
- ^ Creamer, Robert W. Stengel: His Life and Times. New York; Simon and Schuster, 1984, pp.227-249
- ^ Ira Berkow and Jim Kaplan. The Gospel According to Casey. New York; St. Martin's Press, 1992, p.15
- ^ Ira Berkow and Jim Kaplan. The Gospel According to Casey. New York; St. Martin's Press, 1992, p.21
- ^ Ira Berkow and Jim Kaplan. The Gospel According to Casey. New York; St. Martin's Press, 1992, p.x
Other references
- Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia, by David Pietrusza, Matthew Silverman and Michael Gershman, ed. (2000). Total/Sports Illustrated.
- Casey at the Bat: The Story of My Life in Baseball, by Casey Stengel and Harry T. Paxton, Random House, 1962.
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Casey Stengel |
- Major league career managerial statistics from Baseball-Reference
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
- Stengel's Baseball Hall of Fame page
- Stengel's testimony at Kefauver hearings
| Sporting positions | ||
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| Preceded by Max Carey |
Brooklyn Dodgers Manager 1934–1936 |
Succeeded by Burleigh Grimes |
| Preceded by Bill McKechnie |
Boston Bees/Boston Braves Manager 1938-1943 |
Succeeded by Bob Coleman |
| Preceded by Bucky Harris |
New York Yankees Manager 1949-1960 |
Succeeded by Ralph Houk |
| Preceded by First manager |
New York Mets Manager 1962-1965 |
Succeeded by Wes Westrum |
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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Best of the Web: Casey Stengel |
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 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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