Casey Stengel
Baseball's Greatest Character
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The definitive biography of one of baseball's most enduring and influential characters, from New York Times bestselling author and baseball writer Marty Appel.
As a player, Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel's contemporaries included Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson . . . and he was the only person in history to wear the uniforms of all four New York teams: the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets. As a legendary manager, he formed indelible, complicated relationships with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin. For more than five glorious decades, Stengel was the undisputed, quirky, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball--and along the way he revolutionized the role of manager while winning a spectactular ten pennants and seven World Series Championships.
But for a man who spent so much of his life in the limelight--an astounding fifty-five years in professional baseball--Stengel remains an enigma. Acclaimed New York Yankees' historian and bestselling author Marty Appel digs into Casey Stengel's quirks and foibles, unearthing a tremendous trove of baseball stories, perspective, and history. Weaving in never-before-published family documents, Appel creates an intimate portrait of a private man who was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966 and named "Baseball's Greatest Character" by MLB Network's Prime 9. Casey Stengel is a biography that will be treasured by fans of our national pastime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Appel (Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain) relies on recent access to the unpublished memoir of Casey Stengel's widow, Edna, as well as new digitized versions of vintage small-town newspaper reports and old letters sent by the Baseball Hall of Famer to family members, to write a contemporary biography of the man the MLB Network calls "Baseball's Greatest Character." Unpolished and unpredictable as a player and a manager, Stengel became an enduring icon of the sport who would hide a live sparrow under his ball cap during a game, publicly complained about his salary, and made no secret of his disdain for Jackie Robinson. Born Charles Dillion Stengel in Kansas City, Mo., he adopted the nickname "Casey" from the initials of his hometown and briefly pursued dentistry before embarking on a Major League Baseball playing career that lasted from 1912 to 1925. He then managed teams in the majors between 1934 and 1965. He felt most comfortable in New York, and tales featuring the likes of Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle play a large role in Stengel's story. Appel, whose tenure as public relations director for the New York Yankees was just getting started when Stengel died in 1975 at age 85, acknowledges that his friend Robert Creamer wrote a solid Stengel biography in 1984. But new interviews and access to family documents warranted this new bio, which reveals a more personal side of Stengel.
