Read more
Summary
From the New York Times bestselling author of Munson and Pinstripe Empire, Casey Stengel is the definitive biography of baseballs greatest character.
There was nobody like Casey before him, and no one like him since. For more than fifty years, Casey Stengel lived baseball, first as a player (he was the only person in history to play for all the New York teams-the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets), and then as a manager (for the Yankees and Mets, among others). He made his biggest mark on the game, revolutionizing the role of manager while winning an astounding ten pennants and seven World Series Championships (including FIVE STRAIGHT!) with the Yankees. Playing with and against a Whos Who of Cooperstown-Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb-and forming indelible, and sometimes complicated, relationships with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin, Casey Stengel was, for an astonishing five decades, the undisputed, hilarious, and beloved face of baseball.
For a man who spent so much of his life in the limelight, he still remains an enigma. New York Times bestselling author Marty Appel paints an intimate portrait of a private man who was larger than life and remains the embodiment of the national pastime.
Additional text
"Sports journalist Appel delves deeply into the baseball career and personal life of Casey Stengel (1890-1975), a solid player and legendary manager. Citing new material unavailable to previous Stengel biographers and chroniclers of the New York Yankees, the author offers an informative, smoothly written account of a complex and relentlessly interesting subject...Stengel is unquestionably one of baseballs most significant characters, and Appel is the perfect fit to chronicle his life. One of the more skilled biographies baseball fans could hope to find."
--Kirkus (starred)
"An excellent look at Stengels life through more than 50 years of baseball. Appels narrative and easy writing style pairs well with Stengels lighthearted antics, and the intertwined excerpts from the unpublished memoir of Stengels wife, Edna, is a welcoming parallel story of lifelong love and partnership. The author has done his homework, and this book benefits from firsthand accounts and historical perspectives that create an engaging story from beginning to end.VERDICT:Baseball history buffs will definitely want to add this biography to their shelves."
--Library Journal
"With access to a previously unpublished memoir by Stengel's wife, Edna, Appel brings out a wealth of humanizing detail here concerning Stengel's personal life-details about not only his relationship with his wife but also the surprising source of his nickname, the Old Perfesser, and the evolution of Stengelese, the wacky but cagey dialect Stengel used to amuse and misdirect the press. There's plenty of baseball material, too, as Appel shows that, while Stengel was a showman and an entertainer, he was also an underrated baseball genius who earned the respect of multiple Hall of Fame players whose egos were as formidable as their on-thefield skills. Great subject and a fine biography, well researched and sensitively written with just the right amount of humor."
--Booklist (starred)
