As I've been talking about baseball a bit lately, and as I'm especially talking about appeal plays (see Monday's entry), let me regale you with one of me Pops favorite stories. It involves the Ol' Perfesser himself, Casey Stengel.
Casey was brought on to manage the New York Mets as they started out. The club was expected to be awful initially (and it was) and I believe anyway that he was hired as a distraction to how bad the new team would be (The Mets would finish 40-120 their first year, with two cancelled games; who says cancellations are always bad?). Those early Metropolitans were known for less than stellar baseball, making simple mistakes with regularity.
All this did nothing to dampen the Ol' Perfesser's competitive fire. During the course of one game a Met happened to hit a triple. Yet the defense felt the runner had missed second base on his way around and appealed the play. The umpire consequently ruled him out because he had indeed failed to touch second on his way to third.
Casey stormed out of the Mets' dugout to argue the call. But his third base coach quickly stopped him. "Don't bother, Casey, because he missed first base too," Coach morosely explained.
Damn, I love baseball...
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