Casey Stengel in the early 1960s. (Associated Press)

Casey Stengel honed baseball skills in K.C. and won a nickname, too

Charles Dillon Stengel began his career in baseball on the pitted, vacant lots of turn-of-the-century Kansas City. He ended it in the sports cathedrals of New York City a half-century later. In his life he not only scaled the heights of his profession but also created a unique persona that was part irascible, part impenetrable, and part hilarious.

To his family -- which moved to Kansas City in the 1880s and occupied a variety of residences on the city’s northeast and east sides -- he was known as “Charley.” To schoolmates at Kansas City’s Central High School he was known as “Dutch,” a commonplace corruption of “Deutsch” in reference to the Stengel family’s German ancestry.

To everyone else, he would be known as “Casey.”

Read more...

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE STAR'S ARCHIVES

Ball Stars Started Here: World’s Series Money Will Go to Kansas City Players

Published Oct. 8, 1916

For the first time in any baseball world’s series, three so-called native sons of Kansas City are participating with a fourth one sitting on the bench and warming up pitchers now and then. Three of the players will get a full slice of the series money, while the fourth will be given a purse.

As the Mothers See Them: Mrs. Stengel and Mrs. Wheat Tell of Their World’s Series Boys

Published Oct. 8, 1916

The mud their homemade spiked shoes used to carry in the house, the dust that was their cargo after every game and the worries they caused by tardy returns to home after extra-inning sand lot battles – they’re paying for it all now. The mothers who found it a care years ago to pick up that tattered glove thrown into a corner today are finding it no care to follow the baseball activities of their sons.

Job to Stengel

Published Jan. 21, 1945

Casey Stengel, bounced from the Kansas City ball club in 1910 by Danny Shay, who accused the Central high school graduate with carrying too much avoirdupois, is returning next spring as manager of the Blues.

Corner Lot Baseball Here Launched Stengel on Career

Published Oct. 13, 1948

A graduate of the Kansas City corner lots in the early years of the 1900s has made another long jump in baseball, this time from Oakland, Calif., to the most important job of his colorful career.

He’s a Foe in Name Only

Published July 30, 1956

Casey Stengel, who unemotionally has masterminded the New York Yankees to five world championships, cried at home plate at the Municipal Stadium yesterday while 30,257 fans sang “Happy Birthday” to him.

Casey Stengel, Baseball Phenomenon

Published July 30, 1958

Casey Stengel is, as almost everyone knows, the manager of the New York Yankees, who are playing their villain’s role at Municipal Stadium here this week.

With Casey, Age Doesn’t Matter

Published July 31, 1958

The friends and admirers from across the years came from many walks of life yesterday bound together by the phrase lettered on the jaunty baseball caps they wore at the luncheon: Happy Birthday, Casey.

Kansas City’s Mighty Casey

Published Oct. 2, 1975

Now, at 85, he is gone and no one will ever be entirely sure which was the real Casey Stengel. Was it the baseball genius who directed a Yankee dynasty of 10 pennants and seven World Series winners in 12 seasons through the 1950s? Or Casey the entertainer, who both diverted and dismayed the sportswriters with his rambling, non-sequential monologues?

Stengel's keepsake baseballs still a hit

Published Feb. 5, 2000

Legends lie hidden in the strangest places sometimes.