Casey Stengel

$160.00

12 in stock

Only fifteen (15) prints of CASEY STENGEL were produced for this 2014 edition. Each print is signed in the lower right, hand-titled in the center, and numbered in the lower left (all beneath the image).

The image area is 15″ high x 11-1/2″ wide centered on an untrimmed 19″ x 13″ sheet. Paper, ink, and production specifications, as well as shipping details, are available on our PRINT SPECS page.

Prices will increase for subsequent prints as the edition depletes. Purchase price does not include shipping costs, which are calculated during checkout.

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Description

Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel, a.k.a. “The Old Perfessor,” was a competent, if undistinguished major league outfielder from 1912 to 1926. He then became a failed major league manager for the Dodgers and Braves in the 1930s and ’40s, never finishing in the first division. He was renowned for odd locutions that implied cluelessness (“I want you guys to line up alphabetically according to height”). At the end of his career he managed a major league team that established a modern-day mark for the worst full-season won-lost record in history. And yet, in 1966 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Where did Casey go right?

Stengel was hired to manage the New York Yankees in 1949. That year the Yanks began a never-duplicated string of five consecutive world championships. In the final seven years under Casey, they won five more American League pennants and two additional world championships. So dominant were the Bronx Bombers that it was commonly said that “Cheering for the Yankees was like rooting for General Motors.” They boasted a Murderer’s Row of sluggers like Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Johnny Mize, Hank Bauer, and Yogi Berra, as well as future Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey Ford and shortstop Phil Rizzuto.

In 1960, after the Yanks lost to the Pirates in the final game of the World Series on a homer by light-hitting Bill Mazeroski, Casey resigned. But the baseball Gods were not through with him.

Two years later he was coaxed out of retirement to manage the new National League expansion franchise, the Mets. They were a disaster on the field, but they—and their quixotic commander—endeared themselves to millions of fans with their comic ineptitude. Casey at the helm was a sympathetic and entertaining figurehead, chronicled in Jimmy Breslin’s book Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game?

But Casey had firmly established his legacy as a winner, and on his Hall of Fame plaque, he’s wearing a Yankees cap.