The Sunday Funnies

Before Casey Stengel became a genius as manager of the New York Yankees, he was a failure as manager of the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers.

One lowlight of his Dodgers tenure was his invention of a pickoff play at third base. The pitcher was to throw the ball at the right-handed batter's head, the idea being that the sight of the batter going to the ground would cause the baserunner to freeze, while the catcher would have a clear lane to throw to third.

The problem, as Stengel later described it: "The fellows I had playing third base for me used to freeze right along with the base runner, and our left fielder was kept busy running down the ball in the bullpen."

The Sunday Funnies

Early in his managerial career, Casey Stengel had a theatrical move he'd deploy when arguing with an umpire: He'd fall to the ground in a mock faint.

That ended when he tried it on veteran umpire Beans Reardon. Reardon watched Stengel collapse, then did the same.

Stengel, telling the story in years to come, recounted: "When I peeked over and saw Reardon on the ground, I knew I was licked."

The Sunday Funnies

The game time temperature for the 1966 All Star Game in St. Louis was 105. Spectators were passing out from the heat, and players were using smelling salts in the dugouts.

After the game, somebody asked Casey Stengel what he thought of the new stadium in downtown St. Louis. Replied The Old Perfessor, "Well, I'll tell ya, young fella, it sure seems to hold the heat real good."

The Sunday Funnies

This month's tale from Kirby Higbe's "The High Hard One," talking about the Dodgers under manager Leo Durocher:

Under Durocher, we could get the signs of all the clubs except the Cardinals and the Boston Braves. The Braves didn't use them. When Casey Stengel, then the manager, wanted to bunt, he would holler, "Bunt." And he would holler for the hit and run and take, too. Leo asked Stengel if he had any signs. "No," Casey said. "If I did, the only players who would get them anyway would be your team."

The Sunday funnies

June 17, 1962: "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry, first baseman and symbol of the hapless '62 Mets, hit a drive into the gap one day and trundled to third base, where he perched beaming from his apparent triple.

The unfazed opposition promptly ran the appeal play, and Throneberry was ruled out for missing first base.

Mets manager Casey Stengel trundled out to argue the call, and Cookie Lavagetto, his first base coach (and incidentally, the first manager of the Minnesota Twins), intercepted him.

"Don't bother, Casey. He missed second base too," the coach said.

Stengel glared at Lavagetto. "Well, I know he touched third base, 'cause he's standing on it!" Casey barked before retreating to the dugout.

The Sunday Funnies

Casey Stengel, as manager of the talentless New York Mets in the early '60s, once summed up a particular young player thusly:

"We got a kid, Goossen, 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be 30."

(Greg Goossen made to it 65, actually. But as a player, he never got even 200 at-bats in a season in the majors. Casey wasn't the only manager who doubted Goossen could play.)

The Sunday Funnies

Casey Stengel is courting his future wife Edna, and she finally comes from California to New York to see him play.

In the first inning, Casey lays down a bunt and beats it out with a head first slide into first. He then steals second base with a beautiful hook slide. A couple pitches later, a curve bounces in the dirt, and Stengel takes third on a close play and another slide. Then he scores on a short fly ball, with yet another slide.

As the game progresses, Stengel makes a couple diving catches in the outfield — and his run stands up. They win 1-0.

Stengel showers, dresses, dashes off to meet Edna. He's bursting with pride -- the hero of the game, and his girl got to see it.

But she doesn't seemed impressed, and Casey tries to coax a complement out of her. "Well, what did you think?"

"Oh, I know you won," Edna says, "but why did you keep falling down out there?"

The Sunday Funnies

Bob Cerv was an outfielder in the 1950s and early 1960s who spent much of his career as a reserve for the Yankees. He'd get traded to somebody else, then get traded back to the Yanks ...

One day Cerv is sitting alone on the dugout bench waiting for batting practice to begin. Casey Stengel, the Yankee manager, comes out and sits next to him, and the two men just sit there silently, looking out at the empty park.

Finally Stengel speaks:

"Nobody knows this, but one of us has been traded to Kansas City."

(Side note: Many of the stories I'm using in the Sunday Funnies are obvious tall tales and not to be believed. This is plausible -- it's easy to imagine Stengel telling a player he's been traded in such a manner -- but probably not specifically true. Robert Creamer, in his fine biography of Stengel, names Cerv as the player, but the only time the Yankees sent him to Kansas City was in October 1956, so he wasn't sitting in the dugout when told of the deal.)

The Sunday Funnies

Baker Bowl, a ramshackle dump of a ballyard in Philadelphia for much of the first half of the 20th Century, was probably the worst major league park since the dawn of the concrete-and-steel permanent structure.

It's most dominant characteristic: A giant right field wall -- 280 feet down the foul line, just 300 feet in right center -- covered with tin that made a distinctive sound when balls ricocheted off it. Which, of course, happened frequently.

So ... a sweltering day in Philadelphia in the 1930s, and the lowly Brooklyn Dodgers are in town to face the even more lowly Phillies. The key characters in our tale are Dodgers pitcher Walter Beck, outfielder Hack Wilson, and manager Casey Stengel.

Wilson is a fading star at this point, or perhaps more accurately a soused star. The holder of the single-season RBI record, Wilson is in the process of drinking himself out of the league, out of baseball, out of life itself. He is suffering through this game as a result of the night before and living for the night to come.

Beck's pitching prowess can be summed up by his nickname: Boom Boom. That's how he's listed in the encyclopedias: Boom Boom Beck. He wasn't good, but (with the help of WWII) he lasted a long time.

Boom Boom is living up to his nickname on this afternoon, and it occurs to manager Stengel that perhaps one of his colleagues could fare better against the Phillies. The pitcher disagrees. The two begin to argue on the mound about it.

Out in the outfield, a weary Wilson sits down and nods off.

Out on the mound, Beck, infuriated by Stengel's evaluation of his performance, suddenly whirls and fires the ball into right field. The ball clatters off the tin, startling the dozing Wilson awake. Hack jumps up, expertly plays the carom (he's had lots of practice that afternoon) and fires a strike into second base.

Stengel eyes the performance and mutters: Best throw he's made all year.