Casey Stengel and Dave Roberts...
 

The collapse of the Dodgers in the playoffs after a 111-win season and renewed calls for Dave Roberts to go got me thinking of Casey Stengel. Here's a crazy idea: Maybe he gets too little credit for managing the Yanks to five straight WS victories, despite his incredible line-up. The Dodgers have had top-tier line-ups in recent years, but have only claimed 1 WS.

Roberts' Dodgers
LAD 2016 91 71 .562 Lost NLCS
LAD 2017 104 58 .642 Lost WS
LAD 2018 92 71 .564 Lost WS
LAD 2019 106 56 .654 Lost NLDS
LAD 2020 43 17 .717 WS*
LAD 2021 106 56 .654 Lost NLCS
LAD 2022 111 51 .685 Lost NLDS

Stengel's Yankees over 5 year-stretch
NYY 1949 97 57 .630 WS
NYY 1950 98 56 .636 WS
NYY 1951 98 56 .636 WS
NYY 1952 95 59 .617 WS
NYY 1953 99 52 .656 WS

From Wikipedia: "Stengel remains the only manager to lead his club to victory in five consecutive World Series. How much credit he is due for that accomplishment is controversial, due to the talent on the Yankee teams he managed—Total Baseball deemed that the Yankees won only six games more than expected during the Stengel years, given the number of runs scored and allowed. According to Bak, "the argument—even among some Yankees—was that the team was so good anybody could manage it to a title". Rizzuto stated, "You or I could have managed and gone away for the summer and still won those pennants""

But maybe it isn't too easy to just let the great ones play and win the WS. There are so many moments where managers make a difference by taking a pitcher out or pinch-hitting at a key moment.

Is Roberts worse than he is given credit for? Is Stengel better?

Would love your thoughts.

Yankees might not have been so successful if they had to go through the playoffs. Whole different era.

The playoff distinction seems applicable.

Casey managed in the minors. He had helped to get Jim Turner up to the majors in 1937, having managed him in the minors. Casey had Milkman Jim as his pitching coach with those Championship Yankee teams. Casey was in baseball forever, he knew a right smart about the game. I think it's too easy to underestimate what he accomplished.

In addition to the playoff system as a difference, the players are different. Current (modern) players have agents. They have idiosynchrasies, attitudes, and demands that would have been non existent back in Casey's day. Seems to me that Roberts is better attuned to deal with that.

Stengel learned much from McGraw, not a bad manager to learn from. Where one rates him is of course subjective, but it seems to me it can't be too far from the top.

Here's a hot take:

60 games does not a season make. Dodgers must vacate!!!

My Stengel can't compare to a T210, but it's a nice card.

+1

I'm just guessing but I think Stengel probably has the longest span of baseball cards from his 1910 T210 to his 1965 Topps card.

Just off the top of my head, what about Connie Mack? Appeared in the 1887 - 1889 Old Judge issue, followed by various issues throughout the years. He eventually even had his own designated issue of cards in 1951 with the Topps' Connie Mack All-Stars. He was in the 1961 Fleer Baseball Greats series, 1963 Bazooka All-Time Greats cards, and has appeared in other issues and sets over the years since then as well.

When was Macks last year managing? Wow, just looked it up, 1950 at the age of 87, 63 years in baseball, so if we count his 1951 Connie Mack All Stars card as his last playing day card he takes the cake.

Yeah, if you only count when they were actively playing, managing, or coaching, I think Mack may be the man to beat.

Also, add to this, Mack spent more time as the manager of a team than anyone else in baseball history by a country mile...


1901-50 Connie Mack, Athletics (50 seasons)

Mack’s entire career was legendary. During his time with the A’s, which began when he was just 38 years old, the team totaled nine pennants, with five of those resulting in World Series titles. Only two managers -- fellow Hall of Famers Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel -- won more titles, with seven each.

Next up...

1902-32 John McGraw, Giants (31 seasons)

The 29-year-old McGraw signed with the Giants during the season in 1902 after the player/manager was released by the Orioles, beginning a tenure that would last until 1932. Primarily an infielder, he spent his first five years with the Giants as a player/manager before becoming solely the skipper. During his span with New York, the Giants won 10 pennants and converted three of those into World Series titles. The Giants had a .591 winning percentage during McGraw’s time in charge.

Source: MLB, Skippers who stuck with 1 team the longest.

Almost forgot...

Associated Press Connie Mack, in his customary suit and tie, talking with Casey Stengel in spring training of 1934.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009...onnie-mack.jpg

And let us not forget that Casey hit the first HR (inside the park) at the old Yankee Stadium.

https://www.collectorfocus.com/image.../stengel-casey

He was older than my grandfather when he signed for me in 1957.

To be honest, he was always older than my grandfather.;)

Would you the Yankees have 27 titles in the playoff era? No.

Would the Yankees have won others if the playoff era existed in those days? Most probably.

Is the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers World Series title legitimate? I consider it a partial title.

Why would you think that, just because a normal full season wasn't played in 2020? All the teams played a similar number of games, and for the most part all had the same advantages and disadvantages. So with everything else being pretty much equal, why shouldn't that WS championship count just as much as any other one?

And if you're basing that opinion primarily on the fact they played fewer games in the regular season, then by that logic all the WS champions from when they only played 154 game seasons, and had no playoffs and all those additional games to then play, should all be looked down upon and only partially valued as well.

Read Dynasty by Peter Golenbock. It details the Yankees' teams in the Stengel-Houk era. Casey was a hell of a lot sharper as a manager than most give him credit for, because of his corn-pone public persona. He platooned brilliantly, preserved pitchers' arms despite the trends of the time (Whitey Ford won over 20 only after Stengel left but he pitched into the late 1960s), used an ace reliever (Joe Page) and always looked for others, and generally knew what he was doing. Yes, George Weiss gave him a great bunch of tools to work with and yes, they did have a virtual farm club in KC, but he got the job done. Within five years of his and Weiss's departures, the club turned to crap. His teams had very few stars--only three HOFers (Ford, Mantle and Berra; well, also a few seasons of dimming DiMaggio), but they were deep, disciplined and hungry. On paper. the Red Sox and Dodgers were better teams, but that's why you play the games. Stengel also trained up Berra and Martin, who became good managers, and Elston Howard too, who probably would have gotten to manager had he not died only 5 years after the managerial color barrier was broken.

As for playoffs, sure, there would have been upsets. I am displeased with the playoffs as constituted. I don't think an entire season should boil down to a weekend. But that's another debate.

Stengel was not handcuffed by Andrew Friedman running the team with analytics like Roberts has had. Baseball is no longer a game it is a business.

Stengel also benefitted from the pre-free agency times. He didn't have to worry about anyone leaving.

If they played 10 games and then went straight to the postseason, would that be enough to count as a season?

How about 25? 50?

Naturally, there's got to be a cutoff somewhere, where the season is so small as to not really be a season. You might think 60 is enough. I'm not convinced that 60 is really meaningful. Seems more like about 37% of a season to me.

Comparing to the 154 game season seems a little silly, particularly in the context that you're arguing that 37% is no different than 95%. Obviously 154 games is a real season. It doesn't seem absurd to suggest that we can debate whether 60 games is really a full season.

And in my case for this specific "season", my deep seated ill will, antipathy, and malice towards the Dodgers doesn't make me inclined to feel charitable towards 37% of a season being regarded as a full season.

The biggest thing that the evolving schedule has meant is that the best team less and less wins the World Series. To a degree it has always been that way, but a best of seven game series is more likely to yield a more reliable result than a five game series...much less two five game sereieses and then a seven.

With expanded playoffs I can only hope one day that baseball will shave a week or two off the regular season. At this time of year I'm completely tuned out.

A great Casey story is when he (and Mantle) were called to testify before a Senate Committee looking at baseball's antitrust exemption. They ask Casey what he thinks about it and he launches into a 45 minute monologue about his time baseball and God knows what else and essentially says nothing when all is said and done. They then ask Mantle what he thinks, and he brilliantly responds, I agree with everything Casey just said.

Sure they had stars. Rizzuto (HOFer actually), Mize for a couple of years (same), Bobby Richardson, Allie Reynolds.

Stengel is beyond overrated.

All you are talking about is his Yankee years.

You are neglecting the 9 years he managed in Brooklyn & Boston and had a terrible record.

And again with the Mets, 4 brutal years.

I could have managed the 50's Yankees to 7 titles, maybe even 9 or 10.

They were stacked.

All we were talking about is 7 World Series titles in a decade.

I wish I was as passionate about anything as you are about hating the Yankees :D

If Stengel's Yankees didn't have many stars, I have no clue what team in history did have many stars. They had one at almost every position.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

You could fairly call Skowron a star for a number of years.

Agree.

The best managers are the ones that win with the teams that you don't expect too.

Stacked teams managers....c'mon.

Jimmie Reese played 3 seasons in the Majors, 1930 and 1931 for the Yankees, then 1932 for the Cardinals.

His first ball card is a ZeeNut, mid 20s, maybe 1925 or 1926... and he's on 1991 Bowman and Leaf cards as a coach, and on a 1993 Pacific card. There's a bunch of years before his first card and his last.

I think I have his second year ZeeNut card, in with a bunch of ZeeNuts somewhere; and one of his more recent cards. I think I have one of his minor league contracts, or I used to have one.

I would not have thought it possible to top Connie Mack. But I think Reese does by one year. Wow.

Ford, Berra, Mantle, Skowron, Rizzuto, Reynolds, Lopat, Bauer, Mize, Dimaggio, Page, Raschi, Turley (Cy Young counts), Howard, Henrich off the top of my head.

Woodling, McDougald, Coleman, Carey, Siebern, Lindell and numerous others all had star seasons for a year or two with all-star level OPs's. Stengel's Yankees had an absurd number of guys who had career years way over their normal play level when he needed them too.

I am hard pressed to think of a team that produced more star level players. The Yankees had so many they got to platoon stars and had stars on the bench.

Red Schoendienst entered the minors in 1942, the majors in 1945, managed until 1990, and remained a coach until 2017. I believe that's 76 years in organized baseball.

What difference does it really make how many games they play then, as long as the powers that be declare that is the number to be played for that particular shortened season? So I suppose you would also then argue/believe that any awards or achievements from 2020 for players should also be disregarded or downplayed as well then? Then maybe we shouldn't even consider any of the stats accumulated during that season as counting at all, or that they somehow be discounted. For example, Shane Bieber should have his pitching Triple Crown title taken away because the 2020 season was shorter than expected, right?

To go ahead and discount/downplay some records, statistics, and achievements, but maybe not others, all because a season was shortened, is what I would find and declare as being truly silly. My example using a 154 versus a 162 game schedule is not being silly at all, because I specifically used that as a somewhat extreme example, expecting someone to come along and comment about it. Arguing that 154 games is close enough to count as a full, complete season, but 60 games is not, just allows me to emphasize the arbitrariness of what should, or shouldn't, count as a full season. You yourself can't come up with a specific number of games that would possibly satisfy you as to what would then allow you to consider a regular season complete, and therefore worthy of fully recognizing all the records and achievements during it. But whatever number you possibly did come up with is simply your opinion, nothing more. And any argument still fails to explain with any solid, factual evidence or reasoning why any one number of games is okay, but another is not.

I'm not particularly fond of nor rooting for the Dodgers either, but can fully understand you possibly having some additional bias on this issue because the Dodgers somehow seemed to benefit from the shortened 2020 season and came out on top of it with a WS title. But as long as they played the same number of games, under the same rules, constraints, and restrictions, as every other MLB team had to, then it really doesn't matter if the regular season consisted of 162 games, 154 games, 60 games, or even fewer games. The regular season is what they (MLB) designated it to be.

And let's face it, the only reason the MLB regular season is so long has absolutely nothing to do with needing that many games to truly determine the best teams. It has all to do about money and how many games they could play and get fans to buy tickets for, or radio/TV advertisers to pay airtime for. During the years of the 154 game schedules, each team played the other seven teams in their respective leagues 22 times each. Then with expansion in the AL and NL in 1961 and 1962, respectively, both leagues added two new teams and bumped the regular seasons up to 162 games, and now played every other team in their league 18 times each. But since then, and further expansion to 15 teams in each league, every team now plays 19 games a season against each of their division rivals, but only 6 games each against four other teams in their league, 7 games each against the remaining six teams in their league, with the final 20 games spread against teams in the opposing league. So at least in the old days they had teams playing everyone else in their league the exact same number of times so you could more fairly determine who was the best team to represent their league in the WS. So I would submit to you that worrying about the total number of games needing to be played during a regular season to properly validate it as a "real" season and also determine who the best teams are to then represent their respective leagues in the WS, has already been obfuscated by the extremely unbalanced schedules and differing number of games they now have teams playing against other teams outside their own division, and in the other league.

MLB has already wiped away the old traditions originally established by having teams playing everyone else equal numbers of games. So why is it so important to still maintain another tradition and have about the same total number of games used to determine what comprises a full regular season? As it is now, some teams can greatly benefit, or be hurt, by the luck of the draw in what division they end up in, and to a lesser degree, what opponents they get scheduled to play from the other league that particular year. Everyone in the world has already been penalized enough because of the pandemic, why further look to penalize some MLB teams and players for something totally beyond their control?

BobC:

You seem pretty passionate about this, and that’s cool.

Beyond my clearly irrational desire to deny a title to the Dodgers, I’m really not that invested in it. At the same time, I do think that it’s fair to question whether season-long awards like batting titles, ERA titles, etc. should have the same weight when the season is only 60 games long. If someone had hit .400 during the 2020 “season”, would you really think that it should count as actually hitting .400 for the season?

So if a 60-game season floats your boat, then bully for you! But I’m going to be a hater and suggest that it shouldn’t count the same as a full season.

A HOF manager that folks seldom think about is Bucky Harris. Harris began his playing career with the Senators in 1919, and he became the player-manager in 1924, inheriting a team that had a losing record in 1923. With the same key players, "The Boy Wonder" led the 1924 Senators to its first and only WS Championship before the team relocated to Minnesota. Harris' Senators and WaJo (who won his 2 earlier starts) likely would have also won the 1925 WS, if the 7th game hadn't been played in extremely wet conditions on a muddy field.
Harris also piloted the Yankees to the 1947 WS Championship, giving him 2 WS Championships in 3 attempts. Harris' managerial career totaled 29 years with 5 different teams, mostly with the Senators and Tigers.

Love that story Peter!


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Nic, there is no right or wrong answer. I 'm just pointing out how so many things have changed over the years, and a lot of people may not realize it.

My biggest question/concern is for someone like Bieber. If people can't validate the Dodgers WS championship that year, then how can they in their thinking still validate Bieber's achievement? Same thing with all the player stats as well. Way I look at it is, either EVERYTHING counts, or none of it does. You can't just arbitrarily decide some stats and achievements count, while others don't. Makes no logical sense. At least not to me.

What Val says is right, about Harris. Electric October, by Kevin Cook, a book that I deem worth reading. Does the name "Bill Bevens" ring a bell? After reading this book I learn that his first name was Floyd. Seems early on in baseball, he lost a fly ball in the sun, he falls and lands on his back, the ball hits the bill of his cap, then lands in his glove for the out... and from then on his team-mates called him Bill. The Ol' Professer would say you could look it up. In that World Series, how the managers, Harris and Shotton, landed in those positions is quite a story.

Found the contract and a raggedy card. The contract is for Reese to coach the 1956 San Diego Padres. Ralph Kiner signs as General Manager of the Padres.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1666058589


https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1666058637


And a 1928 ZeeNut

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1666058682

What would we argue about if we couldn’t argue about which stats should count and which should be ignored/discounted/beasterisked!!???

I will observe that most media reports, when they refer to the 2020 season and discuss whatever was accomplished during that season, in the next breath invariably also go out of their way to remind the reader that the 2020 season was a pandemic-shortened 60 game season. So to some extent, I would argue that it’s already happening. Maybe not a wholesale dismissal of the season, but certainly a very real focus on putting those achievements into context so that a reader can decide for themselves whether those accomplishments are really as meaningful as accomplishments compiled over a 162-game season.

Dodgers have been stacked and look at what Roberts has done.
i am no Stengel apologist but he is infinitely better than Roberts

If the team won 111 games you don't fire the manager

Mr. Mack: Now Casey I promise I won't divulge this sexually compromising photo if you trade me your best Brooklyn players at a deep discount.

Casey: Gee, Connie, er Mr. Mack, I don't think I have any.

God himself could not have won with the 1962-65 Mets rosters.

The Yankees did have many really good players in the Stengel years. Solid players but not the guys you'd think of as top-tier players or HOFers. The Dodgers seemed way more front-loaded for most of that time: Campanella, Hodges, Reese, Robinson, Furillo, Snider come to mind. The Yankees were really deep, and that wins games.

I forgot about Rizzuto (just like the HOF voters); definitely was an integral starter during the 5-pennant run. Mize was a HOFer but he only appeared in over 100 games once in his Yankees days.

A team can have all the talent in the world but management decisions can drive the clown car off the road. Like the 1982-94 Yankees. The Boss kept signing whoever and the teams won lots of games but nothing in the post-season.

All that aside, I am not sure Roberts should get run. He had to contend with some season-ending critical injuries (losing Buehler was huge; went from 4th in Cy Young voting to sayonara for 2022). Add to that Bellinger (pronounced "turd") and you are down two critical players. I think he did really well regardless. The short format playoffs just favor a streaky team.

He was 82 when I sat next to him at Dodger Stadium in 1972 with my Grandfather. He looked 90 in a leisure suit jacket that looked like a horse blanket in the 100+ degree heat on a Sunday afternoon in the sun.

My grandfather whispered to me, "That's Casey Stengel". When he found out my name was Chuck/Charles...he signed my program, To Charles, from Charles Casey Stengel.....3 times. I cherished that program until it turned up "LOST". I have all my other programs from that ERA.:mad::confused::confused: How I wish it would show up somewhere so I can buy it, LOL.

Eventually, it seemed like the entire ballpark lined up to get his autograph, LOL. A very special day with my Grandpa I will never forget.

This is all I have now.:(:( and a neat story for my Grandkids, who can look him up on Wikipedia. I had to look him up with "baseball cards";)

One from my previous collection...

https://luckeycards.com/pd383stengel.jpg