Casey in Print

Allow me to share another passage from Robert Creamer's book on Casey Stengel. This one centers on the quotable Stengel.

When Casey went to the mound to take a pitcher out, the pitcher said, "I'm not tired," and Stengel replied, "Well, I'm tired of you." Bob Cerv, the big outfielder, was sitting at one end of the empty dugout before a game when Stengel came down the runway from the clubhouse and sat down near him. He looked over at Cerv and said, "Nobody knows this, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City." Of the clean-living pitcher Bob Turley, when Turley was in a slump: "Look at him. He don't smoke, he don't drink, he don't chase women, and he don't win.".....Watching the smooth-swinging Jerry Lumpe cracking out line drives in batting practice, Stengel said, "He looks like the greatest hitter in the world until you play him.".....

A reporter asked him a question, and Casey talked for forty minutes. The reporter said, "Casey, you haven't answered my question," Casey said, "Don't rush me."....One writer left the press room in Yankee Stadium to go down to the dugout to talk with Casey late in the afternoon before a night game. An hour later he returned. "Did Casey tell you who he's going to pitch tomorrow?" another report asked. "He started to," the first man said, "but he got talking about McGraw and the time he managed in Toledo and the Pacific Coast League and God knows what else. I think tomorrow's starting pitcher is Christy Mathewson."