The Ol'
Perfesser
by Don Drewniak
Being with
a woman all night never hurt no professional
baseball player. It's staying up all night
looking for a woman that does him in. - - Casey
Stengel
Casey Stengel
broke into major league baseball with the
Brooklyn Dodgers as a right fielder near the end
of the 1912 season. He played full-time with the
Dodgers through 1917 with his best season being
1914 with a batting average of .316 and a league
leading on base percentage of .404.
Following
numerous pay related battles with the owner of
the Dodgers, he was traded to the Pittsburg
Pirates in 1918. Stengel joined the U.S. Navy
instead of reporting to the Pirates. Upon the
conclusion of World War I, he returned to major
league baseball.
Stengel's pay
disputes continued resulting in his being traded
to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1919 and New York
Giants in 1921. His MLB career ended in May 1925
with the Boston Braves and a respectable lifetime
batting average of .284.
He always
enjoyed a good laugh throughout his 55 years in
baseball. During his playing days, he was a
master of practical jokes. To wit, he was heavily
booed upon his return to Brooklyn in 1919
subsequent to his having been traded to the
Pittsburgh Pirates by the Dodgers. As Stengel
slowly walked to homeplate for his first at bat,
he tipped his cap to the booing crowd. A bird
that he had managed to put into the cap was
sitting on his head. The boos turned to laughter
as the bird flew to freedom.
While with the
Giants, it was his good fortune to have the
legendary John McGraw as his manager. McGraw
managed the Giants from 1902 to 1932, winning 2,763
games against 1,948 losses. Included were three
World Series championships.
Stengel's time
spent with McGraw paved the way for his second
career, that of a flamboyant MLB manager
beginning with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1934. His
time with the Dodgers terminated with the close
of the 1936 season and three consecutive losing
seasons. The Dodgers finished 6th, 5th and 7th in
the eight team National League.
Seeking work
during the Great Depression, my father, Jan F.
Drewniak, moved from his hometown of Fall River,
Massachusetts to Brooklyn in 1933 at age sixteen.
The following is from his book, The Junk
Picker, published posthumously in 2012:
From the
day I stepped off the train that brought me to
New York, my goal was to save as much money as
possible. My two extravagances were going to
movie theaters once or twice a week and watching
the Dodgers play at Ebbets Field when they were
in town on weekends. During the 1933 and 1934
seasons, the Bums lost more games than they won,
but the games were always great entertainment.
Watching Casey Stengel come out of the dugout
during his first year as manager in 1934 to argue
with an umpire was as exciting as a rare Dodgers'
win.
Stengel
returned to the majors in 1938 as manager of the
Boston Braves through 1943. His only winning
season was his first with 77 wins and 75 losses.
In total, he had 373 wins and 491 losses. It was
back to minor league managing where his teams
fared better than had his major league teams.
The turning
point came in October 1948 when he was hired by
the Yankees. His teams finished first in the
American League from 1949 through 1954, never
winning less than 95 games in what were 154 game
seasons. The Yankees also won the World Series
all five of those years beating the Dodgers three
times and the Phillies and Giants.
They dropped
to second behind the Cleveland Indians in 1954
despite a 103 win season. It was back to first-place
the next four years, with two more World Series
victories. Nine first place finishes and seven
World Series championships in ten years can best
be described with one word incredible.
From 92 wins
and first place in 1958, the Yankees tumbled to
79 wins and third place in 1959 (their poorest
record since 1925). They finished fifteen games
behind the first place Chicago White Sox and ten
behind the second place Cleveland Indians.
As a kid, I
watched a fair number of Yankees-Red Sox games in
the 1950s via television. Stengel never failed to
draw thunderous boos from Red Sox fans and cheers
from a surprisingly large number of Yankees fans
when he emerged from the visitor's dugout in
Fenway Park. His arguments with umpires were
always great theater.
It was back to
the top of the American League in 1960 with 97
wins and an eight-game margin over the second
place Baltimore Orioles. The World Series went to
seven games against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Stengel was
widely criticized for starting Art Ditmar in game
one instead of the team's longtime ace, Whitey
Ford. Ditmar failed to finish the first inning in
a Pirates' win and was kayo'd in the second
inning of the fifth game in another win by the
Pirates. Meanwhile, Ford pitched shutouts in
games three and six.
Unfortunately
for Stengel and the Yankees, Ford could not pitch
game seven as he might have if he had pitched
games one and either four or five. The Pirates
beat the Yankees 10-9 in game seven. Stengel,
then 70, was widely criticized for not starting
Ford in game one and deemed by many to be too old
to successfully manage the team.
Upon returning
to New York following the loss of the World
Series, Stengel was informed that his contract
would not be renewed. He requested that it be
announced at a press conference. The request was
granted and he appeared at an October 18th press
conference with Dan Topping, part owner and team
president.
Topping
sidestepped press questions as to whether Stengel
had been fired. Stengel took over the microphone
and said, Quit, fired, whatever you please. I don't
care. Topping then stated that Stengel was been
fired because of his age.
He spent 1961
away from baseball turning down managerial offers
from the Detroit Tigers, San Francisco Giants and
Los Angeles Angels.
The New York
Mets, a National League expansion team that had
yet to play a game, hired him as manager in
October 1961. His first year ended with 40 wins
against 120 losses and a last place finish in the
National League. Only one team in MLB history
amassed more losses in one season, the 1899
Cleveland Spiders with 134.
About his 1962
Mets, he once asked, Can't anyone play this here
game? The team fared little better with last
place finishes in 1963 and 1964. As in 1962, the
Mets lost over 100 games both years.
July 24, 1965:
Over 36,000 fans attended Mets' Shea Stadium to
see a two-inning Old-Timers Day game between
retired Dodgers and Giants players followed by a
doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Little did they know that the second game 5-1
loss by the Mets would turn out to be the last
time Casey Stengel would manage the Mets.
It was
announced the following day that he had a
fractured hip requiring surgery. Legend has it
that the fracture was the result of falling off a
bar stool. While it was hoped by a large number
of fans that the Ol' Perfesser, as he had come to
be known, would return to managing the Mets, it
was not to be. After talking to his wife and
doctor, Stengel called George Weiss, the general
manager of the Mets, on August 25th and told him
that he was retiring. The Mets announced the
retirement five days later. Thus ended his 55
years in baseball.
Warren Spahn
broke into the majors at the tail end of 1942
with the Boston Braves managed by Stengel. He
returned to the Braves in 1946 after three years
of World War II military service. Spahn proceeded
to pitch for the Braves through 1964, both before
and after the team moved to Milwaukee. His final
year in the big leagues was 1965 when he pitched
for Stengel's Mets and the San Francisco Giants
at age 44. He won 363 games in the majors, the
sixth most all-time. Cy Young tops the list with
511 wins.
Alluding to
the fact that he pitched both before and after
Stengel had his phenomenal run managing the
Yankees, Spahn quipped that he was the only
player to pitch for Stengel before and after he
was a genius.
The Ol'
Perfesser spent a substantial amount of time
during the final decade of his life attending
baseball games and baseball related events. He
passed away in 1975 two months after his 85th
birthday.
Gems
from the Ol' Perfesser
The
trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't
argue with one. I'd put my arms around her and
give her a little kiss.
When you
are younger you get blamed for crimes you never
committed and when you're older you begin to get
credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens
itself out.
All right
everyone, line up alphabetically according to
your height.
They say
it can't be done, but sometimes that doesn't
always work.
Never make
bad predictions, especially about the future.
The trick
is growing up without growing old.
I made up
my mind, but I made it up both ways.
Good
pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.
Without
losers, where would the winners be?
They told
me my services were no longer desired because
they wanted to put in a youth program as an
advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never
make the mistake of being seventy again.
You gotta
learn that if you don't get it by midnight,
chances are you ain't gonna get it, and if you do,
it ain't worth it.
I feel
greatly honored to have a ballpark named after me,
especially since I've been thrown out of so many.
Once
someone gave me a picture and I wrote 'Do good in
school.' I looked up and the guy was 78 years old.
Whenever I
decided to release a guy, I always had his room
searched first for a gun. You couldn't take any
chances with some of them birds.
You have
to have a catcher because if you don't you're
likely to have a lot of passed balls.
He (Lyndon
B. Johnson) wanted to see poverty, so he came to
see my team (1964 New York Mets).
I don't
know if he throws a spitball but he sure spits on
the ball.
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