I had the pleasure of writing one of these birthday profiles for legendary Yankees manager and the head honcho for the late 90s dynasty, Joe Torre. There aren’t many who can match Torre’s managerial career, and even fewer can live up to what he did as a player in the major leagues. Now, we get the opportunity to do remember the man who inspired Torre, beginning his career with the men in pinstripes nine years after Torre’s birth in Brooklyn.
Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel Born: July 30, 1890 (Kansas
City, MO) Died: September 29, 1975 (Glendale, CA) Yankees Tenure: 1949-1960
Charles Dillon Stengel was born a Midwest kid in the late 1800s, where he would go to sandlots around his home turf and play baseball with his friends and anyone who wanted a game. By the time he was 20, his time playing in the sandlot was gone, but his dream for Major League Baseball remained after a few years in the semi-pro ranks. Thanks to the Kansas City Blues of the American Association, he began his professional baseball journey.
Stengel began his time as a pitcher, but when he made it to Double-A, his pitching skills were not up to par. So, he was moved to the outfield, where he still needed some work to be done. Kansas City optioned Stengel to the Class C team in Kankakee, Illinois, where he batted .251. Around this time, he did consider other options and even began school to become a dentist. Fortunately for the sport, those dalliances didn’t pan out.
The young Stengel was in the minors for three seasons before he began his major league career with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1912. He played 17 games with a slash line of .316/.466/.386 playing center field. He made his debut on September 17, 1912 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he went 4-for-4 with two RBI’s and two stolen bases. He would play with the Dodgers from 1912 to 1917 (with Ebbets Field opening in 1913), amassing 676 games played with a slash line of .272/.346/.393 for an OPS+ of 119 — so well above average for the era. Brooklyn was the organization that Stengel played the most with, so, naturally, he gathered his most walks, RBI’s, stolen bases, and more there as well.
Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Stengel with Brooklyn. In 1915, at the age of just 24, he dealt with illness as early as spring training, showing up 20 pounds weaker than he was the previous year. And as a result of the illness, which was addressed as venereal disease (after the thought was typhoid fever), he had the worst full season of his playing career. He was also consistently stuck in contract disputes with Charles Ebbets, co-owner of the Dodgers, despite teammate Chief Meyers in the book The Glory of Their Times saying his play was key to the Dodgers’ 1916 pennant win prior to their World Series loss to the Boston Red Sox — and 21-year-old pitcher Babe Ruth.
Stengel was traded to the Pirates after another contract holdout with Dodgers ownership and played for Pittsburgh in the 1918 and 1919 seasons, but he seemed to have little interest in playing for the club. In his first year, he only played in 39 games while working and running Brooklyn Navy Yard’s baseball team. After another contract dispute and a bit of antics from Stengel on the field in 1919 involving a sparrow that was released from his cap when he tipped it after the crowd booed him, Bucs ownership had had enough, and he was moved to Philadelphia.
After one season in 1920 with the Phillies, he was moved again in 1921 to the New York Giants, where he finished that season and played two more, winning back-to-back Fall Classics in two all-Polo Grounds series against a Yankees team that now starred Ruth. He also faced his future club in a third in 1923, memorably hitting an inside-the-park homer in the ninth inning of Game 1 to key a Giants victory during the very first World Series game at the original Yankee Stadium. Another Stengel homer in a 1-0 win in Game 3 put the Giants ahead in the series 2-1, but Ruth’s Yankees rallied for three-straight victories to secure their first championship.
Following a two-season stint in the Boston Braves organization, Stengel hung up the playing spikes, after he was hitting only .077 and was sent to Worcester as player-manager and president for their minor-league squad. He played in 100 games, batted .320, and led the team from last place to third. His legendary managerial career began when an opportunity to take over as manager of the Toledo Mud Hens came out of the woodwork; Stengel released himself as a player, since he was player-manager, and then, as president, he fired himself as manager.
Stengel was manager of the Mud Hens for six seasons, and in 1931 he was hired as a first base coach for the Dodgers by former Pittsburgh teammate Max Carey. The former Dodger had a reputation that preceded him, which gave managers a reason not to hire him for any job, but Carey’s call to allow Stengel into the fold ended his absence from MLB and set him on the road to new heights as a manager. After Carey would not respond to a jab at the Dodgers in the press, he was fired, and Stengel took over for the first time as a manager of a major league ball club. He managed until 1936 and was fired due to poor team performance and not getting enough out of the talent he had at his disposal. After sitting out entirely in 1937, the owner of the Braves, Bob Quinn, offered Stengel the manager chair in his organization, and he took it.
From 1938 to 1943 — Stengel’s tenure at the helm — the team never finished in the top half of MLB and finished seventh four straight years between 1939 and 1942. And while he did see some excellent names come across his lineup card (including Warren Spahn, whom Stengel eventually sent down because he viewed him as not having any “heart”), the progress wasn’t nearly enough to constitute a longer tenure. So, Casey was fired.
Stengel returned to the minors for another four seasons, not sure if or when his major league managing career would ever restart. But after enough work to win Minor League Manager of the Year with the powerhouse Pacific Coast League’s Oakland Oaks, he was finally hired as the manager of the Yankees (eventually bringing along one of his favorite Oaks players, a firestarter named Billy Martin).
Yankees brass were not keen on bringing Stengel in at first. While he had his name tossed around in conversations years before his hiring, those who had a stake in the club knew of Stengel’s reputation and didn’t feel like it was worth pursuing. Like Torre decades later, Casey was also perceived as someone who had never won much of anything as a manager and was undeserving to manage this already-prestigious franchise led by Joe DiMaggio. However, after those who opposed his hiring were either fired or sold their stake, there was no way to block the move.
While Stengel tried to keep a low profile, it was almost impossible for the newest Yankees bench boss. It was hard for Stengel at first to fit in, but he did after a while. Early in his first season, he criticized players heavily, including in one players-only meeting held after a doubleheader loss to Philadelphia. Still, he also made sure to tell them that he knew everything was going to work. He believed they could win. And after DiMaggio returned from injury, that’s exactly what they did.
The Yankees of 1949 finished the season with a plethora of injuries plaguing them, but also a 97-57 record, good enough for the American League pennant and a chance to win a World Series. But it came against Stengel’s former team, the Dodgers, just as it would through most of Stengel’s time as manager. And after five games, the last three of which the Yankees won despite some antics from Stengel in Game 4 that got him reprimanded by the commissioner, Happy Chandler, he won his first championship as a manager — again like Torre in his first year.
In wake of his championship in 1949, Stengel went back to being the man who earned himself the reputation that preceded him: talkative, forceful, brash, you name the adjective, and he was probably that. He knew the job he still had to do, but when you win it all, you have a bit more leeway to do as you see fit. He and DiMaggio had their battles, especially with the Yankee Clipper being in the back end of his career, but Stengel also did an excellent job with the younger players. Names like the already-ascendant Yogi Berra, lefty Eddie Ford (soon to be famous as Whitey), the versatile Gil McDougald, the aforementioned Martin, and others came to the forefront, and Stengel found a player before the 1951 season who could take the franchise’s reins: 19-year-old Mickey Mantle.
The 1950 and 1951 Yankees finished with the same record (98-56), and both came out of the season as world champions, both against two of Stengel’s old teams, the Phillies and Giants. Three seasons, three championships for Stengel as manager of the Bombers, and it had only just begun.
DiMaggio retired from baseball in 1951, and the Yankees continued their reign as kings of Major League Baseball, defeating the Jackie Robinson-led 1952 Dodgers in seven games. The Yankees won another World Series in 1953 against Brooklyn with Martin walking it off in the Game 6 clincher, making that five championships in a row for the Stengel-led pinstriped men. And he felt the love, as the charismatic man dubbed “the Ol’ Perfesser” grew to become a national figurehead not just for the franchise but for baseball as well.
The 1954 campaign was the first that Stengel’s Yankees fell short, though oddly enough, their 103-51 mark was the best of Casey’s time with the Yankees but still eight fewer wins than Cleveland. They quickly bounced back in 1955 with a record of 96-58 and another pennant win. They lost to the Dodgers in the World Series in seven games, but from there, it flip-flopped, with the Yankees winning the World Series over Brooklyn in 1956 (keyed by Stengel’s gutsy call to start Don Larsen in Game 5 mere days after he was dreadful in Game 2), only the pennant in 1957, and a seventh title in 1958, avenging the previous year’s loss to the Milwaukee Braves. Over that period, there were issues within the organization and how Stengel managed the players off the field, with rumors leading to a media circus when players stayed out too late or even were involved in a brawl at the Copacabana nightclub — leading to Martin’s ouster. But as long as they were winning, Stengel did not mind one bit.
By the time he won his seventh World Series as manager, Stengel was 67 years old and was seen falling asleep in the dugout. According to his players, he had also grown significantly more irritable. He needed a new contract and was visibly wearing down. Still, management decided to keep him involved anyway because of that 1958 triumph, even though his contract was set to expire.
Casey was given another two-year deal set to expire in 1960. A 79-75 record and distant third-place finish in 1959 was a clear example of the problems within the Yankees dugout. Despite winning his 10th pennant in 1960, the decision to not renew Stengel as Yankees manager had effectively been made, and it was only secured by strange decisions during that last Fall Classic. Stengel’s ace, Ford, was incensed that his skipper refused to start him in Game 1 against Pittsburgh, which Art Ditmar lost, 4-2. It was a strange series, as the Yankees outscored the Pirates by more than any team in World Series history across seven games, but New York lost three close games along the way to force a Game 7 — which Ford could not start because he wasn’t used until Games 3 and 6 (blowout wins).
Bill Mazeroski’s series-winning homer off Ralph Terry was the last moment of Stengel’s Yankees career. Overall, he finished with a 1149-696 record with the Yankees, along with seven World Series championships and 10 AL pennants. Stengel went on to manage the New York Mets from 1962 to 1965, where he finished with a record of 175-404 for the expansion club that was still finding their identity — though he remained a beloved figure in the media for everything he did to stir up interest in his otherwise-subpar Metsies.
While he was a brash character both during his playing days and during his time as a manager, Stengel will always be remembered for the effect he had on his players and his leadership during the best years in Yankees history. He was blessed with great players, but some of the best seasons in MLB history came under his tenure. For that, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966 alongside legendary Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams.
Stengel helped build and foster some of the best teams and players the game will ever know, making his mark permanently on the sport’s history. His No. 37 was retired in 1970, allowing him one more moment in the Bronx sun prior to his passing five years later at age-85.
Happy birthday, Casey!
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
