Stengel: His Life and Times

By Robert W. Creamer

Book Overview

One of the most endearing of American heroes, Casey Stengel guided the New York Yankees to ten pennants in twelve seasons. Here is the brilliant manager stripped naked--the person underneath all the clowning, mugging, and double-talking.

Robert Creamer shows us Casey at twenty-two, famous from his very first day in the big leagues. We see Casey's playing career fall apart as he is traded, shunted to last-place teams, hampered by injuries, considered finished--until he bats a glorious home run in the 1923 World Series. Here are Casey's managing successes and failures--dismissed by the Yankees, he returns to the limelight with his new and inept New York Mets, the team he single-handedly lifts into the nation's consciousness.

"I'm a man that's been up and down," Casey said in a serious moment. Certainly his knack for bouncing back made him a legend in our national pastime. Here are the stories and gags, the Stengelian style, the full dimensions of the man.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803263678
• ISBN13: 9780803263673
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Yankee Fan

This is one of the best baseball books I have ever read. Not only is it a book about the life of Casey Stengel, but it is a good history of the game of baseball. It provides laughs in every chapter, entertaining stories as well as history of baseball. I would say that every Yankee fan ought to have a copy.

Great Reading

Excellent. Well written, gives a good history yet moves right along.This guy had an amazing career and an amazing record.This is a must read for anyone interested in baseball.

Stengel was great and so is Creamer.

Picked up this book because I enjoyed Creamer's book on Babe Ruth and Stengel is just as good, maybe better. You'd almost expect a book on Stengel to skip the earlier years in favor of his coaching years but this book doesn't. Stengel's early years are entertaining and provide a good look into the teens, 20's and 30's of baseball so if that's what you're after then you'll like this book. You'll probably also be surprised at the life that Stengel lived, there's so much more to this man than I expected - what a full life he lived. He was the Ulysses of baseball....as if the Gods of Baseball decided to pluck this Chaplin-like soul and make him wander through the game for a lifetime. Creamer really delivers.

A MUST for any lover of baseball

"Stengel: His Life and Times" is no mere biography. It is a chronicle, not only of the earlier days of baseball, but of America itself. As a biography, it is superlative. As a history book, it stands on it's own merits.

Informative, often funny, biography of Casey Stengel

In STENGEL, Creamer traces the life of baseball legend Casey Stengel, from his youth in Kansas City through his baseball career. Included are dozens of anecdotes which reveal insight into the character of the man known and loved by millions of baseball fans spanning several generations.