Casey Stengel had a way with words. The trouble was with the way he combined them. Stengelese became the term used to describe his vocabulary and implausible double-talk. Red Smith once likened it to "picking up quicksilver with boxing gloves." Here are some examples (with translation provided). Stengel will be profiled tonight on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series at 8 and midnight ET.
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Stengelese
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Stengelese
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Translation
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butcher boy
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a chopped ground ball
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doubleheaded
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doubleheader
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enbalmed
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sleeping
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fairly amazin'
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good
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green pea
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rookie or unseasoned player
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he could squeeze your earbrows off
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a tough player
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hold the gun
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I want to change pitchers
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Ned in the third reader
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naivete
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plumber
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a good fielder
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road apple
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a bum
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whiskey slick
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a playboy
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worm killers
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low balls
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the Youth of America
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rookies
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Quotable Casey
"Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in."
"Don't drink in the hotel bar, because that's where I do my drinking."--a Stengel road trip rule
"Can't anybody here play this game?"-- Stengel first posed this question about the original Mets
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| Casey Stengel and Mickey Mantle celebrate Mantle's Triple Crown in 1956. |
"Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later."
"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."
"He has it in his body to be great."--on a young Mickey Mantle
"He threw the ball as far from the bat and as close to the plate as possible."--on Satchel Paige
"He's a great hitter until I play him."--on Met Jerry Lumpe
"He's a remarkable catch, that Canzoneri. He's the only catcher in baseball who can't catch."
"I can make a living telling the truth."
"I don't know if he throws a spitball, but he sure spits on the ball."
"If anyone wants me, tell them I'm being embalmed."
"I'm glad I had baseball knuckles and couldn't become a dentist."--referring to his brief career as a dental student
"Most ballgames are lost, not won."
"Sure I smoke but not all the time. I stop when I go to bed and you can look it up."
"The combined results of all our catchers turned out fairly good and then bad."
"The young fella has effeminate appeal, just like me."--after meeting Robert Goulet
"Then I'd have two languages I couldn't speak, French and English both."--when asked why he never visited Montreal
"You commence gettin' tired 2 days later from staying up all night which it wasn't cause you're going West and you can't even get a sandwich in the whole town."--on arriving in Los Angeles after a long trip
"You fellers should do real good here now that I've added my fellers to your fellers. And the one who should help you most is a feller I shouldn't have given you. He's old but he still glues his meat together after he gets hurt."--describing Enos Slaughter
"You can say, here is the opportunity and the Youth of America says, 'How much are you going to pay me?' It's like going to the university--they want the biggest, the best, the most. If necessary, we'll pay the bonuses. But they should earn it."
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