Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel - "The Old Professor"

By Rev. Connell A. McHugh

Casey Stengel was born in Kansas City, Missouri on July 30, 1891 and died September 29, 1975 in Glendale, California. Charles Dillon Stengel got his nickname of Casey because of being born in Kansas City. Most of us know about his managing career with the Yankees but not much about his playing career. Casey played in the Majors for 14 years, and while not a superstar, he was a better than average player. Stengel appeared in 1,277 career games with 1,219 hits and 60 homeruns. He played in 12 games in 3 World Series, batted .393 and won 2 games for the Giants with homeruns. Casey played for 5 different National League teams: Brooklyn 1912-17, Pittsburgh 1918-19, Philadelphia 1920-21, the Giants 1921-23 and the Braves in 1924-25. Casey was always a colorful figure even during his playing days. In all, including Minor League managing, Stengel spent 53 years in baseball.

Casey Stengel’s years as a Major League manager were far from successful. He initially managed Brooklyn from 1934- 36 and the Boston Bees from 1938-43. None of these teams finished in the Frist Division and only one of the Boston teams finished over .500. Throughout his life, Stengel was totally dedicated to baseball and his wife, Edna.

Before his success in baseball, Stengel spent some time while in the Minors studying Dentistry. Casey was a clown as a player as well as when he managed. He always had a ton of stories and spoke a dialect which was called “Stengelese” by sportswriters. On one of his last Major League stops as a player, Casey found a manhole on the field, and while people were not paying attention, he lifted the manhole cover and hid in the hole and casually popped out and made the catch of a lazy pop to right field. When he returned to Brooklyn after being traded to Pittsburg, he was roundly booed. Casey hid a sparrow under his hat and calmly removed his cap when he came to bat, and the crowd burst into laughter. Stengel learned the most when he played for the great Giant manager, John McGraw who is tied with Casey for the most pennants won at 10. He learned about platooning players which he himself as a player, detested. Casey would use the platoon system nearly 30 years later as a Yankee manager. Casey Stengel holds the distinction of hitting the first World Series homerun in Yankee Stadium, an inside the park, to win a Series game against the Yankees. Casey also won another game with a homerun although the Yankees won the 1923 Series 4 games to 2. After the Series, Casey was traded to Boston and batted .280 in 1924 but played only 12 games in 1925 before taking a managerial Minor League job with Worcester and serving as Club President. He continued to manage in the Minors until he became Dodger manager in 1934. After being fired in 1936, Stengel managed the Boston Bees from 1938 through 1943.

Charlie Grimm hired Casey to be a Minor League manager after Boston let him go. Casey did well as a Minor League manager skipper. In 1948 with the Oakland Oaks, Casey was named Minor League Manager of the Year. To the surprise of all, George Weiss, a longtime friend and Yankee GM though Stengel was a fine manager and hired him to manage the Yankees. Casey went on to win 10 Pennants and 7 World Series. Casey managed the Yankees for 12 seasons.

Casey Stengel’s career spanned the era from Christy Mathewson to Tom Seaver. Stengel won 5 straight Pennants and World Series from 1949 through 1953. The 3 Series the Yankees lost were to Brooklyn in 1955, Milwaukee in 1957 and Pittsburgh in 1960 which led to the firing of Stengel. During his 12 years in New York, Stengel averaged 95 wins in the 154 game season. The only time Stengel eclipsed the 100 winning mark was in 1954 when the Yankees won 103 games but finished second to Cleveland which won 111 games with the great pitching staff of Bob Feller, Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon, Hal Newhouser and Early Wynn. Cleveland was upset in the Series by the Giants 4-0 who were led by Dusty Rhodes.

Stengel finished with a career record of 1905 and 1842 in regular season play for a .508 winning percentage. Many of his losses came from the sub-mediocre Brooklyn and Boston Clubs and the hapless Mets which went 40-120 in their initial year with Casey at the helm. Stengel’s Mets won in the low 50s the next couple of years. However, Casey was very successful in popularizing the Mets. A broken hip led to his retirement.

Casey Stengel was not popular with many Yankee players but was well liked by superstar, Mickey Mantle. Stengel changed Mantle from an erratic shortstop to a solid centerfielder with great speed. Many of the Yankees disliked Stengel’s platoon system but it did pay dividends. Under Stengel, the Yankees were famous for picking up key players for the Pennant stretch run. My favorite pickup was “The Big Cat” Johnny Mize.

Under Stengel, the Yankees had the big three of starting pitchers – Eddie Lopat, Vic Raschi and Allie Reynolds. They were the foundation of the 1949 through 1953 teams. Those teams won 5 consecutive championships. Among the other effective pitchers were reliever Joe Page and pickup former pitching stars Ewell Blackwell and Johnny Sain.

After losing to Pittsburgh in the 1960 World Series, the Yankees fired Stengel. The Yankees lost to the Pirates when Bill Mazeroski homered off Ralph Terry. The Yankees heavily outscored the Pirates in the Series but lost 4 games to 3. Yankee management felt that Stengel made a big mistake starting Art Ditmar rather than Whitey Ford. Ditmar had a whopping 21.60 ERA in 2 World Series appearances while Whitey Ford easily handled the Pirates pitching with 2 complete game shutouts. During the early part of the next season, Ditmar was traded and went 2-15 with an ERA near 6.00 before retiring. Stengel was not that popular among Yankee players while Ralph Houk was. Houk was given the manager’s job. Stengel had a terrific run with the Yankees and became a big asset in popularizing the Mets despite their awful record in their early years.

Casey Stengel’s favorite pitcher, who also is mine, was Allie Reynolds. Reynolds was just as important to the Yankees of Stengel’s days as Mariano Rivera was to Torre’s Yankees. We must not forget that the Yankees had much of their success against the Brooklyn Dodgers, one of the greatest lineups of all-time, certainly superior to the top Dodger’s teams of today.

Cards of Stengel are rather plentiful. The best one I have is a 1940 Play-ball that depicts Stengel as the manager of the Boston Bees. He appears in the 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953 Bowman Black and White set in which he is the most expensive card in the set, running a few hundred dollars in Ex-Mt condition. The cards from 1950 – 1952 run about $30 to $60 in Excellent or better condition. After Topps bought out Bowman after the 1955 season, Stengel appeared in many Topps sets through 1965 and these cards mainly run between $10 and $20.