When Charles D. (Casey) Stengel was managing old DiMaggio and young Mantle in 1951, he might have seemed like a lion tamer or a juggler but not an uncle. When he was creating the Amazin’ Mets in 1962, he may have seemed like a street magician but not exactly an uncle.
Yogi Berra tells how Casey allowed him to call every pitch, unlike some controlling managers of today, and if the pitcher was tiring, Yogi would rotate his right index finger while squatting behind the plate and Casey would never miss the signal.
However, most people know Casey for his platoon tactics and his rubbery face and his salty and obscure language. He would speak double talk--the famous Stengelese.
Attention must always be paid to Charles Dillon Stengel, the only man to have worn the uniforms of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. Played for the first two, managed the first, third and fourth. Nobody is likely to duplicate this record.
When Toni Mollett Harsh, a great-niece of Edna Lawson Stengel, visited the Stengels in the summer of 1962, she was 15. She bought a pair of high-heeled shoes and “a cute little black dress,” which were not needed back home in Glendale, Calif., but were de rigueur at the Essex House on Central Park South, where the childless Stengels were ensconced.
“Every night after the game, everybody else would go upstairs, but Uncle Casey would take a walk,” Toni said over lunch on Thursday. “He would go out the front door, turn right to Sixth Avenue, walk down to 58th Street, turn right on Seventh Avenue and turn right to the hotel. That doesn’t sound like a long walk, but it would take forever because everybody recognized him and would stop him to talk and ask for his autograph. He said that was part of his job.”
Mistaken Identity
My grandfather, Ernest Luff, was an accountant in Upstate New York who traveled to New York City often to meet with clients. He would stay at the Essex House and often be mistaken for Casey Stengel, the baseball Hall of Famer who managed the New York Yankees from 1949 to 1960 (from his 58th year to his 69th year). Casey lived in the 515-room Central Park South Essex House during his baseball managing days and he and my grandfather became friends due to this mistaken identity; with the look-a-likes getting together whenever my grandfather was in the city.
In the early 1950s, my grandfather took my brother Jim and I to NYC---combining business and the pleasure of taking his grandsons to watch the Yankees play. I remember Casey, known as "The Old Perfessor," entertaining my brother and I at the hotel (acting just like an uncle) while telling us stories of his minor league baseball adventures.
At Yankee Stadium, we not only enjoyed a home game but were invited into the club house and each given a baseball autographed by the Yankee stars of the time: Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantel, Phil Rizzuto, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra and others. I have often wondered what happened to those autographed baseballs but guess they were probably put into service when we needed another baseball for a game on the sandlot next to our home.
However, one of my most vivid memories of that visit to Yankee Stadium was walking past celebrity Jayne Mansfield as she was moving toward her waiting car outside the stadium. It was no mistake that Ms. Mansfield turned many heads that day.
Source: The New York Times, April 17, 2011
Come and visit the Blogging Boomer Carnival hosted this week by Laura Lee Carter, the Midlife Crisis Queen. You will enjoy what you discover Baby Boomers are about today..including their life challenges.
