Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (; July 30, 1890 – September 29, 1975) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder and manager, best known as the manager of the championship New York Yankees of the 1950s and later, the expansion New York Mets. Nicknamed "the Ol' Perfessor", he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in .
Stengel was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1890. In 1910, he began a professional baseball career that would span over half a century. After almost three seasons in the minor leagues, Stengel reached the major leagues late in 1912, as an outfielder, for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His six seasons there saw some success, among them playing for Brooklyn's 1916 National League championship team. During this time he also developed a reputation as a clown. After repeated clashes over pay with the Dodgers owner, Charlie Ebbets, Stengel was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1918; however, he enlisted in the Navy that summer, for the remainder of World War I. After returning to baseball, he continued his pay disputes, resulting in trades to the Philadelphia Phillies (in 1919) and to the New York Giants (in 1921). There, he learned much about baseball from the manager, John McGraw, and had a number of highlights in his career, including hitting an inside-the-park home run in Game 1 of the 1923 World Series to defeat the Yankees. His major league playing career ended with the Boston Braves in 1925, after which he began a career as a manager.
The first twenty years of Stengel's second career brought mostly poor finishes, especially during his MLB managerial stints with the Dodgers (1934–1936) and Braves (1938–1943). He thereafter enjoyed some success on the minor league level, and Yankee general manager George Weiss hired him as manager in October 1948. Stengel's Yankees won the World Series five consecutive years (1949–1953), the only time that has been achieved. Although the team won ten pennants in his twelve seasons and won seven World Series, his final two years brought less success, with a third-place finish in 1959 and a loss in the 1960 World Series. By then aged 70, he was dismissed by the Yankees shortly after their defeat.
Stengel had become well known for his humorous and sometimes disjointed way of speech during his time with the Yankees, and these skills of showmanship served the expansion Mets well when they hired him in late 1961. He promoted the team tirelessly, as well as managing it to a 40–120 win–loss record, the most losses of any 20th century MLB team. The team finished last all four years he managed it, but was boosted by considerable support from fans. Stengel retired in 1965, and became a fixture at baseball events for the rest of his life. Although Stengel is sometimes described as one of the great managers in major league history, others have contrasted his success during the Yankee years with his lack of success at other times, and concluded he was a good manager only when given good players. Stengel is remembered as one of the great characters in baseball history.
Early life
Charles Dillon Stengel was born on July 30, 1890, in Kansas City, Missouri. His ancestry included German and Irish; his parents—Louis Stengel and Jennie (Jordan) Stengel—were from the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa, and had moved to Kansas City soon after their 1886 wedding so Louis could take an insurance job. "Charlie" was the youngest of three children, and the second son. Charlie Stengel played sandlot baseball as a child, and also played baseball, football and basketball at Kansas City's Central High School. His basketball team won the city championship, while the baseball team won the state championship.
As a teenager, Stengel played on a number of semipro baseball teams. He played on the traveling team called the Kansas City Red Sox during the summers of 1908 and 1909, going as far west as Wyoming and earning a dollar a day. He was offered a contract by the minor league Kansas City Blues for $135 a month, more money than his father was making. Since young Stengel was underage, his father had to agree, which he did. Louis Stengel recalled, "So I put down my paper and signed. You could never change that boy's mind anyway".
Playing career
Minor leagues
thumb|upright=0.65|left|alt=a young man in an old-style baseball uniform wears a glove and stares at the camera|Stengel as a member of the Maysville Rivermen, 1910
Before reporting to spring training for the Blues in early 1910 at Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Stengel was approached by his neighbor, Kid Nichols, a former star pitcher, who advised him to listen to his manager and to the older players, and if he was minded to reject their advice, at least think it over for a month or so first. Stengel failed to make the ball club, which was part of the American Association, considered one of the top minor leagues. Kansas City optioned Stengel to the Kankakee Kays of the Class D Northern Association, a lower-level minor league, to gain experience as an outfielder. He had a .251 batting average with Kankakee when the league folded in July. He found a place with the Shelbyville Grays, who moved mid-season and became the Maysville Rivermen, of the Class D Blue Grass League, batting .221. He returned to the Blues for the final week of the season, with his combined batting average for 1910 at .237.
Uncertain of whether he would be successful as a baseball player, Stengel attended Western Dental College in the 1910–1911 offseason. He would later tell stories of his woes as a left-handed would-be dentist using right-handed equipment. The Blues sold Stengel to the Aurora Blues of the Class C Wisconsin–Illinois League. He led the league with a .352 batting average. Brooklyn Dodgers scout Larry Sutton took a trip from Chicago to nearby Aurora, noticed Stengel, and the Dodgers purchased his contract on September 1, 1911. Brooklyn outfielder Zach Wheat later claimed credit for tipping off Sutton that Stengel was worth signing. Stengel finished the season with Aurora and returned to dental school for the offseason. Stengel continued to play well, finishing the season with a .316 batting average, though hitting .351 when right-handers started against Brooklyn and only .250 when left-handers started.
thumb|upright=0.75|alt=Stengel stands in the outfield, playing his position and wearing sunglasses|Stengel playing outfield for the Dodgers, c. 1915
After holding out for better pay, Stengel signed with the Dodgers for 1913. He won the starting center fielder job. The Dodgers had a new ballpark, Ebbets Field, and Stengel became the first person to hit a home run there, first an inside-the-park home run against the New York Yankees in an exhibition game to open the stadium, and then in the regular season. During the 1913 season, Stengel acquired the nickname "Casey"; there are varying stories of how this came to be, though his home town of Kansas City likely played a prominent role—sportswriter Fred Lieb stated that the ballplayer had "Charles Stengel—K.C." stenciled on his bags. Although he missed 25 games with injuries, he hit .272 with seven official home runs in his first full season as a major leaguer. Prior to 1914 spring training, Stengel coached baseball at the University of Mississippi. Though the position was unpaid, he was designated an assistant professor for the time he was there, something that may have been the source of Stengel's nickname, "The Ol' Perfessor".
The Dodgers were an improving team in Stengel's first years with them, and he was greatly influenced by the manager who joined the team in 1914, Wilbert Robinson. Stengel also avoided a holdout in 1914; Dodgers owner Charlie Ebbets was anxious to put his players under contract lest they jump to the new Federal League, and nearly doubled Stengel's salary to $4,000 per year. During spring training, the Dodgers faced the minor league Baltimore Orioles and their rookie, Babe Ruth, who pitched. Ruth hit a triple over Stengel's head but gave up two doubles to him, and Stengel chased down a long Ruth fly ball to right in the Dodgers' loss. Both Brooklyn and Stengel started the season slowly, but both recovered with a hot streak that left the Dodgers only 4 games under .500, their best record since 1903, and Stengel finished with a .316 batting average, fifth best in the league. His on-base percentage led the league at .404, though this was not yet an official statistic. With the Federal League still active, Stengel was rewarded with a two-year contract at $6,000 per year.
Stengel reported to spring training ill and thin; he was unable to work out for much of the time the Dodgers spent in Florida. Although the team stated that he had typhoid fever, still common in 1915, Lieb wrote after Stengel's death in 1975 that the ballplayer had gonorrhea. Stengel may have been involved in a well-known incident during spring training when Robinson agreed to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane piloted by Ruth Law—except that it proved not to be a baseball, but a small grapefruit, much to the manager's shock, as he assumed the liquid on him was blood. Law stated that she dropped the grapefruit as she had forgotten the baseball, but Stengel retold the story, imitating Robinson, many times in his later years, with himself as grapefruit dropper, and is often given the credit for the stunt. Stengel's batting average dipped as low as the .150s for part of the season; though he eventually recovered to .237, this was still the worst full season percentage of his major league career. ||3747|||| || ||
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Awards and honors
As part of professional baseball's centennial celebrations in 1969, Stengel was voted its "Greatest Living Manager". He had his uniform number, 37, retired by both the Yankees and the Mets. He is the first man in MLB history to have had his number retired by more than one team based solely upon his managerial accomplishments, and was joined in that feat in 2011 by the late Sparky Anderson, who had called Stengel "the greatest man" in the history of baseball. The Yankees dedicated a plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park in Stengel's memory on July 30, 1976, reading: "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". He was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1981.
Stengel is the only man 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 Dodgers, Giants, Yankees and Mets. He is the only person to have played or managed for the home team in five New York City major league venues: Washington Park, Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium and the original Yankee Stadium. In 2009, in an awards segment on the MLB Network titled "The Prime 9", he was named "The Greatest Character of The Game", beating out Yogi Berra.
Managerial techniques
Stengel re-invigorated platooning in baseball. Most of Stengel's playing days were after offensive platooning, choosing left-handed batters against a right-handed pitcher and the converse, was used successfully by the World Series champion 1914 Boston "Miracle" Braves. This set off widespread use of platooning: Stengel himself was several times during his playing career platooned against right-handers, but the practice fell into disuse around 1930. Stengel reintroduced it to the Yankees, and its prominent use amid the team's success caused it to be imitated by other teams. Bill James deemed Stengel and Earl Weaver the most successful platoon managers.
This strategic selection also applied to the pitchers, as Stengel leveraged his staff, starting his best pitchers against the best opponents. Although Stengel is best known for doing this with the Yankees, he also did it in his days managing Brooklyn and Boston, and to a very limited extent with the Mets. Rather than have a regular pitching rotation to maximize the number of starts a pitcher will have, Stengel often rested pitchers longer to take advantage of situational advantages which he perceived. For example, Stengel started Eddie Lopat against Cleveland whenever possible, because he regularly beat them. Stengel's 1954 Yankees had the highest sabermetrics measurement of Leverage Points Average of any 20th century baseball team. Leveraging became unpopular after choices of starting pitchers based on it backfired on Lopez in the 1959 World Series and on Stengel in the following year's—he waited until Game 3 to start Whitey Ford because he felt Ford would be more effective at Yankee Stadium rather than at the small Forbes Field. Ford pitched two shutouts, including Game 6 at Forbes Field, but could not pitch in the Yankees' Game 7 loss. Stengel's philosophy took another blow in 1961 when Houk used Ford in a regular rotation and the pitcher went 25–4 and won the Cy Young Award—he had never won 20 games under Stengel. Today, teams prefer, for the most part, a regular rotation.
James noted that Stengel was not only the most successful manager of the 1950s, he was the most dominant manager of any single decade in baseball history. Stengel used his entire squad as Yankee manager, in contrast to other teams when he began his tenure, on which substitutes tended to get little playing time. Stengel's use of platooning meant more players saw more use, and he was generally more prone to put in a pinch hitter or replace his pitcher than other managers. Although only once in Stengel's time (1954) did the Yankees lead the league in number of pinch hitters, Stengel was known for using them in odd situations, once pinch-hitting for Moose Skowron in the first inning after a change of pitcher. Additionally, according to James, Stengel "rotated lineups with mad abandon, using perhaps 70 to 100 different lineups in a 154 game season". Although Stengel was not the first Yankee manager to use a regular relief pitcher—Harris had seen success with Joe Page in 1947—his adoption of the concept did much to promote it.
Stengel often rotated infielders between positions, with the Yankees having no real regular second baseman or shortstop between 1954 and 1958. Despite this, the Yankees had a strong defensive infield throughout. Stengel gave great attention to the double play, both defensively and in planning his lineup, and the Yankees responded by being first in the league in double plays as a defense six times in his twelve-year tenure, and the batters hit into the fewest double plays as a team eight times in that era. Having had few players he could rely upon while managing Brooklyn and Boston, Stengel treated his Yankee roster with little sentimentality, trading players quickly when their performance seemed to decline, regardless of past accomplishments. Assured of quality replacements secured by the Yankee front office, the technique worked well, but was not a success with the Mets, where no quality replacements were available, and the technique caused confusion and apathy among the players.
Appraisal
Marty Appel wrote of Stengel, "He was not a man for all seasons; he was a man for baseball seasons". Stengel remains the only manager to lead his club to victory in five consecutive World Series. How much credit he is due for that accomplishment is controversial, due to the talent on the Yankee teams he managed—Total Baseball deemed that the Yankees won only six games more than expected during the Stengel years, given the number of runs scored and allowed.