Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Vin Scully, on Casey Stengel

Vin Scully, from Sunday's telecast:

...there couldn't have been too many laughs. The country was at war, but on this date in 1918, Casey Stengel was coming to the plate at Ebbets Field.

Now he had played for the Dodgers for six years, then he was traded away to Pittsburgh, and now he came back. He was always popular. Crowd gave him an ovation. Casey got in the box, then he backed out and asked for time.

Time was granted. Casey turned to the crowd, took off his cap, and a bird was on his head and flew away.

One of the more memorable moments, they tell me, in baseball played anywhere.

He was something. Let's go back to this one.

Four-four in the sixth inning, and by the way, Casey went from being a so-called clown, a fellow who had studied to be a left-handed dentist — yeah that's right, left-handed dentist — anyway, Casey in his twenty-five year managerial career won ten pennants, seven World Championships.

So four-four, Justin Miller, and a ground foul off the bat of Melky Cabrera....

Stengel re-creates his stunt at a Brooklyn/Los Angeles Old-Timers Game at Dodger Stadium.

photo from Blue Heaven

12 comments:

Fred's Brim said...

cool story! How do you get bird under your hat anyway?

I also like seeing the field-level scoreboards in the background. I miss those. Did they go when they redid the field level seats?

Kyle Baker said...

The picture Vin painted was that Stengel was a batter. From the picture it looked as if he was wearing a suit. I'm just waking up this morning so I may be missing something....but wha?

Orel said...

The picture apparently is from when Stengel re-created the stunt at an Old-Timers Game. Caption added.

Nostradamus said...

If I recall correctly, the scoreboards in foul territory went away when they moved the dugouts forward and added the ones in the outfield in the 90's.

Kyle Baker said...

^ Rogue apostrophe alert! And so early. This is gonna be a rough day I can tell already.

Kyle Baker said...

Ahhhh, got it. Thanks for the clarification, Orel.

Nostradamus said...

In other news, I woke up this morning sounding like Isaac Hayes. What the hell was I doing last night?

Fred's Brim said...

who cares about last night? what are you doing tonight, you sexy-sounding motherf..?

Nostradamus said...

@dusty

Yup, that little bastard sneaked from the front to the back of the decade. I accept full responsibility

Kyle Baker said...

@Mr C

That's the way I got through the '80s.

Nostradamus said...

@fb

Tonight, I'm probably going to be collecting mucus in my sinuses, from the sound of things. How hot is that?

Fred's Brim said...

@Mr C, that's HAWT!