Casey Stengel by Marty Appel

Author:Marty Appel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

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* Power would win six Gold Gloves for fielding excellence in the American League.

26

FIVE STRAIGHT

The Yankees added a second, even earlier instructional camp that began on February 1, 1953, right in Casey’s backyard. Casey Stengel Field in Glendale was good enough for professionals to work out there (later, the Portland Beavers of the PCL made it their spring training home). But the added two weeks of drills, which included Casey’s neighbor and pal Babe Herman as an instructor, proved to be simply too much, and this was the only year this early Glendale camp was run.

Beginning with that camp, and, of course, in all of the pre-season baseball magazines that were published, attention was drawn to the possibility of an unprecedented five straight world championships. If ever winning a pennant but losing a World Series would seem like failure, this was the time. It had to be all or nothing. To win five straight when no team had ever done it before, even if you turned the calendar back to nineteenth-century baseball—well, that would really be something. And that was the mission.

The spring camp of 1953 was also the first time that Mantle, Martin, and Ford were together: Whitey had been discharged from the army after two years. The friendship formed by that trio, all in their early twenties, would last their lifetimes.

Sometimes they would get into trouble; ultimately, it was thought that Martin was a “bad influence.” But the reality was, they were young, had spending money, and were Yankee heroes; the world was their oyster.

Of course, they were adults and capable of making decisions on their own—even bad ones. And no one expected a manager to supervise nighttime behavior, save for curfews. Meanwhile, the writers had their backs; no improper behavior was reported.

Besides, Casey liked hard-drinking players. He did not have much use for the “milkshake drinkers,” as he called them. By the same token, he preferred tobacco chewers to gum chewers (of whom Mantle was one). So, in that sense, he was an enabler, and is it fair to say that in that role he let three young lives get caught up in what we now classify as the disease of alcoholism? The three were hardly alone—it was the culture of the game to pass the nights by drinking. Casey set the example himself, spending hours in the hotel bars after games, regaling the writers. “Stengel’s drinking has been overplayed,” wrote Tom Meany, a regular member of “my writers.” “He stays with a party, but never goes under the weather or under the table. His thirst is not for alcohol, but for an audience.”

Given what we now know about the later health and behavior of Mantle, Martin, and Ford, it seems appropriate at least to bring their “father figure” (actually old enough to be a grandfather figure), Casey Stengel, into the discussion, even if there is no right or wrong conclusion to draw.

The dean of New York baseball writers, Dan Daniel, wrote: “Mickey is badly in need of guidance and so far he has not received it.

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