The Pecan Park Eagle

What's that hiding under your cap, Casey?

Back in the 1950s, you had to love this guy, even if you hated the New York Yankees and the way they routinely ran over all the other clubs like a Nazi panzer division. Remember what happened during Stengel’s rein as manager from 1949 to 1960? In that 12-year span, the Yankees took the American League pennant 10 times, and also they won the World Series in 7 of their 10 trips to the really big show.

Remember too, Casey’s managerial career wasn’t all about winning, During the 1930s and early 1940s, Stengel managed 10 second division clubs in the National League at Brooklyn ((1934-1936) and Boston (1938-1943). He also followed his run with the Yankees as the manager of the original “Amazin’ Mets” for three straight 10th place NL finishes (1962-1964) and a fourth season (1965) that finished old Casey once the club started the season 31-64.

I have to confess. I never was a big Yankee hater as a kid and I loved what I read about Casey. The story of how he once changed boos to cheers as a player at Brooklyn by bowing at home plate and releasing a bird from under his cap just cracked me up at age 11. I thought, “Man! This Casey Stengel fellow is my kind of guy.”

One of my favorite Casey Stengel stories is about the time he managed at Toledo during the 1920s. He did something there that was mindful of his managerial mentor, John McGraw of the New York Giants.

McGraw once kept an untalented tuberculosis patient named Charles Victory Faust on his pitching roster as a good luck charm. He even pitched him a couple of innings in 1911 in meaningless games with no great harmful results. Following suit, Stengel carried a fellow named Al Herman on his 1926 Toledo Mud Hen roster as a “good luck token.”

Herman had shown up that year at Toledo, asking for a tryout. A young fellow from the Bronx, he didn’t have much of anything on the ball and we don’t know why he chose Casey and Toledo to display his wares. Perhaps he already had tried McGraw in New York and then went to Toledo by referral. we don’t really know. All we know is that Casey took him in, in spite of his obvious missing talent.

Herman possessed a stiff, contorted, stunted windup that resembled something he had only tried in the confines of his Bronx apartment building before a mirror. Still, Stengel kept him on the roster for good luck until one day at Minneapolis when he was forced to use him. With no help from a pitching coach, Stengel had used up all of his real pitchers and now needed to hold onto a lead with no one else left in the pen but Herman,

Into the game came Al Herman to pitch the bottom of the 9th. He looked awful warming up.

There must have been some magic dust in the air that day. Herman faced three batters. They each hit the ball a long way, but the way was straight up in the air, as though they were batting in a chimney. Herman had retired all three batters on towering infield pop flies and saved the game for Casey and the Toledo Mud Hens. Amazing!

Stengel ended up using Herman eight times in 1926. In 15 innings, Herman walked 11 batters and struck out only one. After the season, he vanished from baseball and disappeared forever from the limelight.

Wouldn’t you love to know what happened to Al Herman after baseball? That would be some follow-up story.

This entry was posted on February 17, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.