Saturday, October 12, 2013

This Day In New York Yankees History 10/12


On this day in 1948 the Yankees hired a new manager, Casey Stengel, to replace Bucky Harris. The "Old Professor" never finished above fifth place before coming to the Yankees as the manager of the Braves and the Dodgers.

6 comments:

  1. People thought Casey was a bad choice but, it worked out well.

    There are similarities between him and Joe T., let me rephrase that...one part where they are alike is both had bad records before coming to the Yanks.
    Whereas Casey was one of the great all time teachers of baseball, Joe T. was a very good hitter and that is it. Joe T., had cliques.
    Casey would turn a blind eye to us "Kitchen Trash" kids, he was the one that made it possible for us to walk in and talk to the players. I had two talks with Eddie LoPat about pitching, they turned out to be of great help to me.
    Casey even told me to hold my hands away from my body when I bunt so as to get better control of the ball by only moving one hand.

    28-14

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    1. Casey was a great Yankees manager and really hit his stride with us. It's cool when you share these stories with us that you cannot simply read on wikipedia or google.

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  2. Thank you sir...
    Back in the 40s and into the 50s the Yankees had an open house (I think that's what it was called) every so often and let some of us "Kitchen Trash" (kids from Hells Kitchen) slip in the back gate. So we got to meet and talk to some of the players a lot. Darn near everyone except "Joe D" he was not a nice guy at all, everything was about money with him. He was one heck of a player but not like the Mick, Scooter, Billy and Whitey, and most of the other guys. As long as you had real baseball questions, they would find the time to talk to you...except when the warm-ups began, then we got out-of-the-way.

    There was an older player I remember very well (name escapes me) he used the old-time bottle-neck bat and spent about an hour one day for a couple of weeks, showing me how to use it and why he did. After that I started to use one all the time...Punch and Judy hitting, high avg., NO power at all, never hit a ball over an out fielders head in over 50 years! lol

    Like I said, Casey was all over the place helping one player or another all the time, with footwork, changing an arm angle, grip on the ball, weight shift at the plate and most important...balance...any and everything. He always said Balance and Footwork were the keys to everything one did on the field.

    Nobody ever mentions that he was a great teacher and changed some players position and helped them learn said position!

    28-14

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    1. What kind of professional baseball did you play ranger?

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    2. In the Army, when I was state side and sand lot baseball. Heck I was in the Army so trying out for a minor league team was not in the cards...besides, those guys are much better then most Fans seem to think. I did have fun playing against some of the Farm teams over the years. I would love coming in to close or just pitch a late inning and watch those guys trying to time my pitches. Those guys were geared up for all that 90 to 95+mph, pitches and my pitches were so slow a hitter could have lunch served faster than my ball would get to the plate.

      Bottom line; just didn't think I was as good a player as I was at being a Army Ranger!

      28-14

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)