The Yankee

In twelve seasons with the Yankees, Stengel won ten pennants, starting with five straight World Series championships. When that streak was broken in 1954, his team won more games than it ever had before (103), but Cleveland won an American League record 111. Then he won four more pennants in succession, although he lost the World Series in 7 games to the Dodgers in 1955 and to the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 -- then beat each of them in a return match the following year. His only poor team, barely over .500, was in 1959, when it finished behind the White Sox and Indians. Then the Yankees won the pennant in 1960 -- the league's last season as an eight-team circuit -- and lost the World Series to Pittsburgh in 7 games.

No manager had ever done anything like that. None ever will again, because the conditions that made it possible are long since gone.

The most important feature of this achievement, from a managerial point of view, was the ability to keep winning without letting complacency sap the drive of long-term regulars and to handle personnel turnover without loss of efficiency. Of the thirty-seven players who got into a game for the 1949 Yankees, only one -- Yogi Berra -- was still playing for them in 1960.

It's a major league truism that it's harder to repeat than to win the first time. To repeat time after time becomes exponentially more difficult, and the true measure of Stengel's accomplishment lies in that.

The 1949 season has been chronicled in detail in David Halberstam's Season of '49 and many other books. The library is full of volumes that tell the story of Stengel's dozen years through the eyes of one or another of the participants and countless observers. Our concern is with the particular managerial problems, solutions, and characteristics made evident in this twelve-year period.

1. Gaining control. The team Stengel started with had many men accustomed to winning under McCarthy, whose decisions they respected and rules they followed. In their maturity, they had enjoyed Bucky Harris's more easygoing manner. Stengel's clown reputation offended their Yankee pride, but more than that, they had no reason to feel confident that he knew what he was doing. And when he displayed methods they weren't used to -- lots of platooning, hunches that violated orthodox logic, incomprehensible chatter, a taste for kooky publicity -- their doubts increased. He could win them over in only one way: What he did had to work. He had to be proven right by results and victories. By the end of the third year, Casey had convinced them. They still didn't understand what he was doing, and shook their heads at "crazy" moves that seemed to turn out right by sheer luck. But you couldn't argue with success.

Older players, however, automatically phased themselves out as time went on. The newer ones had no reason to disbelieve. The problem with them was to teach them to be "big leaguers," shore up their weak points, and keep improving their strong points. The best form of discipline for them was the oldest one, made easier to carry out in a platoon system: Do it my way or sit.

2. Maintaining continuity. Each year the farm system would produce high-quality new talent, and for specific needs, Weiss was good at making in-season trades. But even outstanding talent, arriving from Triple-A, needed more instruction and refinement. Rickey's system was getting impressive results from specialized coaching, departmentalization in training camp, and expert instructors traveling through the minor leagues. The Yankees had a lot of that too under Weiss. But why couldn't you apply the same idea to the parent club? Couldn't the coaching staff be made larger, given more clearly defined responsibilities, used to greater advantage? Traditionally, a manager had one close confidant (perhaps the third base coach), as a drinking buddy; someone to take care of the bullpen; and a general-purpose assistant. Stengel wanted more.

He brought in Jim Turner, who had pitched for him in Boston after having McKechnie's tutelage, as his pitching coach -- and put him in charge, as if pitching were a subdepartment of the ball club. The pitchers were "his" to look after -- not just their mechanics and their training and their rotation, but their problems and desires as a group. Turner was their delegate to the central brain trust, protecting their 'interests," as well as their foreman. Then, having given Turner this responsibility, Stengel deferred to his judgment most of the time.

Berra was obviously a potential hitting star, but he had been played in the outfield a lot because he had deficiencies as a catcher. Stengel brought back Bill Dickey as a special coach who could, as Yogi put it, "learn me his experiences."

Crosetti, who had worshipped McCarthy and stayed on as a player-coach under Harris, now took over as full-time third base coach in games, and concentrated on sharpening the skills of infielders in practice.

Dickey, of course, could help all the hitters, although Casey subscribed to McGraw's precept that it's better not to tamper with natural styles. (When a kid infielder named Gil McDougald showed up in 1950 and won a job although he had played only in the Class AA Texas League the year before, he had one of the craziest stances anyone had ever seen; but he had hit .336 that way at Beaumont, where Rogers Hornsby, his manager, had sense enough to leave him alone. Stengel also let him do it his own way while McDougald hit .306 as a rookie in 131 games. When, in 1951 his average slipped to .263, it was time enough to get him to make adjustments.)

And Stengel felt he could teach the outfielders what they had to know. None of this was new in itself. Casey just applied it more thoroughly.

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