Casey Stengel Quotes & Sayings

#1. If I've got a good pinch-hitter, I hate to have him stay on the bench with men on the bases in an early inning. He may end the game right there.

Casey Stengel

#2. They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again.

Casey Stengel

#3. The Mets has come along slow, but fast!

Casey Stengel

#4. Mantle had more ability than any player I ever had on that club.

Casey Stengel

#5. All that analysis is well and good, but what I need right now is a left-handed batter who can hit the ball over the shortstop's head.

Casey Stengel

#6. They got a lot of kids now whose uniforms are so tight, especially the pants, that they cannot bend over to pick up ground balls. And they don't want to bend over in television games because in that way there is no way their face can get on the camera.

Casey Stengel

#7. 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.

Casey Stengel

#8. They said it couldn't be done, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Casey Stengel

#9. Johnny Sain don't say much, but that don't matter much, because when you're out there on the mound, you got nobody to talk to.

Casey Stengel

#10. He's a smart-assed kid who's always sassin' people and gettin' away with it.

Casey Stengel

#11. You can get into the greatest business in the world because you can manufacture money by yourself on the field.

Casey Stengel

#12. You make your own luck. Some people have bad
luck all their lives.

Casey Stengel

#13. Most games are lost, not won.

Casey Stengel

#14. The best ballplayer's the one who doesn't think he made good. He keeps trying to convince you.

Casey Stengel

#15. I never saw a player who had greater promise.

Casey Stengel

#16. You gotta learn that if you don't get it by midnight, chances are you ain't gonna get it, and if you do, it ain't worth it.

Casey Stengel

#17. They say you can't do it, but sometimes it doesn't always work.

Casey Stengel

#18. Well, that's baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next. But I've been in it 36 years and I'm used to it.

Casey Stengel

#19. He (Lyndon B. Johnson) wanted to see poverty, so he came to see my team (1964 New York Mets).

Casey Stengel

#20. It's wonderful to meet so many friends that I didn't used to like.

Casey Stengel

#21. They say Yogi Berra is funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's funny about that?

Casey Stengel

#22. Whenever I decided to release a guy, I always had his room searched first for a gun. You couldn't take any chances with some of them birds.

Casey Stengel

#23. I was not successful as a ball player, as it was a game of skill.

Casey Stengel

#24. Never make bad predictions, especially about the futture.

Casey Stengel

#25. Two hundred million Americans, and there ain't two good catchers among 'em.

Casey Stengel

#26. Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself.

Casey Stengel

#27. What do you think, I was born at 60?

Casey Stengel

#28. We are a much improved ball club: now we lose in extra innings!

Casey Stengel

#29. Most ball games are lost, not won.

Casey Stengel

#30. Pardon me, Mr. Craig, but how are we going to defense Mr. McCovey ... in the upper deck or the lower deck?

Casey Stengel

#31. He (Mickey Mantle) should lead the league in everything. With his combination of speed and power he should win the triple batting crown every year. In fact, he should do anything he wants to do.

Casey Stengel

#32. They say it can't be done, but sometimes that doesn't always work.

Casey Stengel

#33. There's nobody on my ball club that doesn't go from first to third on a base hit, or from second to home. Every time you steal a base, you're taking a gamble on getting thrown out, and taking the bat out of the hitter's hand.

Casey Stengel

#34. It's easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that's the hard part.

Casey Stengel

#35. The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It's that they stay out all night looking for it.

Casey Stengel

#36. Even my players aren't players.

Casey Stengel

#37. I'll never make the mistake of being 70 again.

Casey Stengel

#38. Do you realize how good you have to be to strike out 2000 times?

Casey Stengel

#39. Mr. that boy couldn't hit the ground if he fell out of an airplane.

Casey Stengel

#40. They examined all my organs. Some of them are quite remarkable and others are not so good. A lot of museums are bidding for them.

Casey Stengel

#41. No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball.

Casey Stengel

#42. You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls.

Casey Stengel

#43. You got to get twenty-seven outs to win.

Casey Stengel

#44. You have to draft a catcher, because if you don't have one, the pitch will roll all the way back to the screen.

Casey Stengel

#45. Wake up muscles we're in New York now.

Casey Stengel

#46. Okay everybody, line up in alphabetical order according to your height.

Casey Stengel

#47. The trick is growing up without growing old.

Casey Stengel

#48. My health is good enough about the shoulders.

Casey Stengel

#49. I broke in with four hits, and the writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression.

Casey Stengel

#50. (Rogers) Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. (Ty) Cobb was the fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases ...

Casey Stengel

#51. Been in this game one-hundred years, but I see new ways to lose 'em I never knew existed before.

Casey Stengel

#52. I would not admire hitting against Ryne Duren, because if he ever hit you in the head you might be in the past tense.

Casey Stengel

#53. Play every game as if your job depended on it. It just might.

Casey Stengel

#54. You can't go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.

Casey Stengel

#55. The only thing worse than a Mets game is a Mets doubleheader.

Casey Stengel

#56. Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: You can win or you can lose or it can rain.

Casey Stengel

#57. What's the use of askin' a man to execute if he can't execute?

Casey Stengel

#58. After a deplorable day afield, when asked by a reporter what he thought of his team's execution

Casey Stengel

#59. Oldtimers, weekends, and airplane landings are alike. If you can walk away from them, they're successful.

Casey Stengel

#60. All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.

Casey Stengel

#61. Take everything you can get over in center. The Dago's heel is hurting pretty bad.

Casey Stengel

#62. Because there'd be two languages I couldn't speak, French and English.

Casey Stengel

#63. You can't get into the Hall of Fame unless you limp.

Casey Stengel

#64. I was a left-handed dentist who made people cry.

Casey Stengel

#65. That kid can hit balls over buildings.

Casey Stengel

#66. He (Gil Hodges) fields better on one leg than anybody else I got on two.

Casey Stengel

#67. The trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't argue with one. I'd put my arms around her and give her a little kiss.

Casey Stengel

#68. The team has come along slow but fast.

Casey Stengel

#69. I've tried to give a dollar and 25 cents in work for every dollar paid me.

Casey Stengel

#70. Bobby Brown reminds me of a fellow who's been hitting for 12 years and fielding one.

Casey Stengel

#71. I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice.

Casey Stengel

#72. Don't cut your nose off yourself.

Casey Stengel

#73. Left-handers have more enthusiasm for life. They sleep on the wrong side of the bed, and their head gets more stagnant on that side.

Casey Stengel

#74. See that fella over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now that fella over there, he's 20 years old, too. In 10 years he's got a chance to be 30.

Casey Stengel

#75. He (Mickey Mantle) has it in his body to be great.

Casey Stengel

#76. Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.

Casey Stengel

#77. We're in such a slump that even the ones that are drinkin' aren't hittin'.

Casey Stengel

#78. Baseball is very big at the present time. This makes me think baseball will live longer than Casey Stengel or anybody else.

Casey Stengel

#79. I love signing autographs. I'll sign anything but veal cutlets. My ballpoint slips on veal cutlets.

Casey Stengel

#80. If you're so smart, let's see you get out of the Army.

Casey Stengel

#81. The Mets are gonna be amazing.

Casey Stengel

#82. He'd (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch.

Casey Stengel

#83. If you ran a delicatessen store, you would want to be the best delicatessen store, wouldn't you? Well, that's how I feel about the Yankees.

Casey Stengel

#84. Sometimes it's easier to understand things than it is to figure them out

Casey Stengel

#85. He (Babe Ruth) was very brave at the plate. You rarely saw him fall away from a pitch. He stayed right in there. No one drove him out.

Casey Stengel

#86. When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

Casey Stengel