He was an outfielder on several teams in the National League beginning on September 17, 1912: the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1912 to 1917; the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1918 and 1919; the Philadelphia Phillies in 1920 and part of 1921; the New York Giants from 1921 to 1923; and the Boston Braves in 1924 and 1925. He played in three World Series: in 1916 for the Dodgers and in 1922 and 1923 for the Giants. Casey Stengel is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame He threw left handed and batted left handed. His batting average was .284 over 14 major league seasons.

He was a competent player, but by no means a superstar. On July 8, 1958, discussing his career before the Senate's Estes Kefauver Committee on baseball's antitrust status, he made this observation: "I had many years that I was not so successful as a ballplayer, as it is a game of skill."

Nonetheless, he had a good World Series in a losing cause in 1923, hitting 2 home runs to win the two games the Giants won in that Series. He was traded to the perennial second-division-dwelling Braves in the off-season, a fact which apparently stung him. Years later he made this pithy comment: "It's lucky I didn't hit 3 home runs in three games, or McGraw would have traded me to the 3-I League."

He is better known for managing than playing. His first managerships were on the Brooklyn Dodgers (from 1934 to 1936) and Boston Braves (1938-1943), where he was not very successful, never finishing better than fifth in an 8-team league. As he said in 1958, "I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there is no question I had to leave."

Stengel demonstrated he could be successful as a manager of a team having worthy talent. In 1944, Stengel was hired as the manager of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers, over the strenuous objections of club owner Bill Veeck (who was serving in the South Pacific with the Marines at the time, and therefore unable to prevent the hiring). Veeck was proven wrong as Stengel led the Brewers to the American Association pennant that year. In 1948 Stengel managed the Oakland Oaks to the Pacific Coast League championship. This caught the attention of the New York Yankees, who were looking for a new manager.

Despite a good deal of initial skepticism in the press, Stengel was hired as the skipper of the Yankees in 1949, and finally had a chance for success at the major league level. His astuteness and realistic viewpoint as a manager is revealed in this comment about the Yankees when he took their reins: "There is less wrong with this team than any team I have ever managed." That would prove to be an understatement.

He proceeded to set records for championships, becoming the only person to manage a team to five consecutive World Series championships as the late-40s, early-50s Yankees became a juggernaut. He won two additional world championships and three additional league pennants afterward. While managing the Yankees he gained a reputation as one of the game's sharpest tactitians: he platooned left and right handed hitters extensively (which had become a lost art by the late 1940s), and sometimes pinch hit for his starting pitcher in early innings if he felt a timely hit would break the game open. While praised for his platooning strategy, he downplayed it: "There's not much of a secret to it. You put a righthand hitter against a lefthand pitcher and a lefthand hitter against a righthand pitcher and on cloudy days you use a fastball pitcher".

Stengel was a master publicist and promoter, especially for his teams. He was a captivating raconteur and especially during the years of success with the Yankees had the New York media eating out of his hand. He became as much of a public figure as many of his star players such as Mantle, Berra, and Ford, and he appeared on the cover of national, non-sports, magazines such as Time Magazine. His apparently stream-of-consciousness monologues on all facets of baseball history and tactics (and anything else that took his fancy) became known as "Stengelese" to sportswriters. They also earned him the nickname "The Old Perfesser". In the spring of 1953, after the Yankees had won four straight World Series victories he made the following observation, which could just as easily have been made by The Perfessor's prize pupil, Yogi Berra: "If we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as smart as we think we are."

After losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series after a ninth inning game 7 winning home run by Bill Mazeroski, Stengel was involuntarily retired from the Yankees, because he was believed to be too old to manage. "I'll never make the mistake of being 70 again!" Stengel remarked. He was talked out of retirement after one season to manage the New York Mets, at the time an expansion team with no chance of winning many games. Mocking his well-publicized advanced age, when he was hired he said, "It's a great honor to be joining the Knickerbockers", a New York baseball team that had seen its last game around the time of the Civil War. The Mets proved to be so incompetent that they gave Stengel plenty of fresh Stengelese material for the New York City newspaper writers. "Come see my "Amazin' Mets," Stengel said. "I've been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before." On his three catchers: "I got one that can throw but can't catch, one that can catch but can't throw, and one who can hit but can't do either." Referring to the rookies Ed Kranepool and Greg Goossen in 1964, Stengel observed, "See that fellow over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years he has a chance to be a star. Now, that fellow over there, he's 20, too. In 10 years he has a chance to be 30." Kranepool never became a star, but he did have an 18-year major league career.

Though his "Amazin'" Mets finished last in a 10-team league all four years, Stengel was a popular figure nonetheless, not least due to his personal charisma. The Mets themselves proved to be as lovable, due in part to Stengel's charisma and the "lovable loser" charm that followed the team around in those days. Fans packed the old Polo Grounds (prior to Shea Stadium being built), many of them bringing along colorful placards and signs with all sorts of sayings on them. Warren Spahn, who had briefly played under Stengel for the 1942 Braves and for the 1965 Mets commented "I'm probably the only guy who worked for Stengel before and after he was a genius." Stengel's retirement, announced on August 30, 1965, followed a fall at Shea Stadium, in which he broke his hip.

His uniform number 37 has been retired by both the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees retired the number on August 8, 1970, and dedicated a plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park in his memory on July 30, 1976. The plaque calls him "For over sixty years one of America's folk heroes who contributed immensely to the lore and language of the Yankees and our national pastime baseball." He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966 and inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1981.

Stengel is the only person to have worn the uniform (as player or manager) of all four Major League Baseball teams that played in New York City in the 20th century (while each team was in New York City): The New York Giants (as a player), the Brooklyn Dodgers (as both a player and a manager), the New York Yankees (as a manager), and the New York Mets (also as a manager).

In 1975, he was asked if he would like to return to managing. He responded, "Well, to be perfectly truthful and honest and frank about it, I am 85 years old, which ain't bad, so to be truthful and honest and frank about it, the thing I'd like to be right now is...an astronaut."

He died in Glendale, California of cancer on September 29, 1975 and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. The day after his death, Los Angeles columnist Jim Murray wrote, "Well, God is getting an earful tonight." The plaza surrounding Shea Stadium is named after Stengel (Casey Stengel Plaza), as is the New York City Transit Bus Depot (Casey Stengel Depot) across the street from the stadium. [edit] Source

"All I ask is that you bust your heiny on that field."

"Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself."

"Don't drink in the hotel bar, that's where I do my drinking."

"Been in this game one-hundred years, but I see new ways to lose 'em I never knew existed before."

"It's high time something was done for the pitchers. They put up the stands and take down fences to make more home runs and plague the pitchers. Let them revive the spitter and help the pitchers make a living."

"Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits."

"That kid can hit balls over buildings."

"There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them."

"They say Yogi Berra is funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank and he plays gold with millionaires. What's funny about that?"

"Nobody ever had too many of them (pitchers)."

"You can't go out to the mound, hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane."

"Nobody knows this [yet], but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City." -- to Outfielder Bob Cerv

"They examined all my organs. Some of them are quite remarkable and others are not so good. A lot of museums are bidding for them." -- after being hospitalized for two weeks

"You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living."

"I broke in with four hits and the writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression."

"All right, everybody line up alphabetically according to your height."

"You got to get twenty-seven outs to win."

"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."

"Mr. that boy couldn't hit the ground if he fell out of an airplane."

"I couldn't have done it without my players." -- on winning the 1958 World Series

"They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again."

"My health is good enough about the shoulders."

"The team has come along slow but fast."

"Well, that's baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next. But I've been in it 36 years and I'm used to it."

"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

"The trick is growing up without growing old."

"The Yankees don't pay me to win every day, just two out of three."

"You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls."

"When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out."

"Now there's three things that can happen in a ball game: you can win, you can lose, or it can rain."

"You can't get into the Hall of Fame unless you limp."

"Wake up muscles we're in New York now."

"They got a lot of kids now whose uniforms are so tight, especially the pants, that they cannot bend over to pick up ground balls. And they don't want to bend over in television games because in that way there is no way their face can get on the camera."

"Son, we'd like to keep you around this season but we're going to try and win a pennant."

"The trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't argue with one. I'd put my arms around her and give her a little kiss."

"Johnny Sain don't say much, but that don't matter much, because when you're out there on the mound, you got nobody to talk to."

"Sure I played, did you think I was born at the age of 70 sitting in a dugout trying to manage guys like you? "

"Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hits."

"The Mets are gonna be amazing."

"I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks in batting practice."

"I was not successful as a ball player, as it was a game of skill."

"If we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as good as we think we are."

"If you're so smart, let's see you get out of the Army."

"I came in here and a fella asked me to have a drink. I said I don't drink. Then another fella said hear you and Joe DiMaggio aren't speaking and I said I'll take that drink."

"I would not admire hitting against Ryne Duren, because if he ever hit you in the head you might be in the past tense."

"I don't like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three."

"They say some of my stars drink whiskey. But I have found that the ones who drink milkshakes don't win many ball games."

"I don't know if he throws a spitball but he sure spits on the ball."

"Lefthanders have more enthusiasm for life. They sleep on the wrong side of the bed and their head gets more stagnant on that side."

"It's wonderful to meet so many friends that I didn't used to like."

"The way our luck has been lately, our fellas have been getting hurt on their days off."

"If you're playing baseball and thinking about managing, you're crazy. You'd be better off thinking about being an owner."

"Most ball games are lost, not won."

"We are in such a slump that even the ones that are drinkin' aren't hittin'."

"I feel greatly honored to have a ballpark named after me, especially since I've been thrown out of so many."

"I got players with bad watches - they can't tell midnight from noon."