Top 100 Casey Stengel Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “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

52. “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

53. “I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there was no question I had to leave.”

— Casey Stengel

54. “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

55. “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

56. “What do you think, I was born at 60?”

— Casey Stengel

57. “I don’t like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three.”

— Casey Stengel

58. “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

59. “Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”

— Casey Stengel

60. “I don’t know if he throws a spitball but he sure spits on the ball.”

— Casey Stengel

61. “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

62. “Sometimes it’s easier to understand things than it is to figure them out.”

— Casey Stengel

63. “Best thing wrong with Jack Fisher is nothing.”

— Casey Stengel

64. “The way our luck has been lately, our fellas have been getting hurt on their days off.”

— Casey Stengel

65. “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

66. “If you’re so smart, let’s see you get out of the Army.”

— Casey Stengel

67. “Don’t cut off your nose yourself.”

— Casey Stengel

68. “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

69. “Two hundred million Americans, and there ain’t two good catchers among ’em.”

— Casey Stengel

70. “That kid can hit balls over buildings.”

— Casey Stengel

71. “The Mets has come along slow, but fast!”

— Casey Stengel

72. “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

73. “Do you realize how good you have to be to strike out 2000 times?”

— Casey Stengel

74. “The best ballplayer’s the one who doesn’t think he made good. He keeps trying to convince you.”

— Casey Stengel

75. “All I ask is that you bust your heiny on that field.”

— Casey Stengel

76. “Don’t drink in the hotel bar, that’s where I do my drinking.”

— Casey Stengel

77. “It’s high time something was done for the pitchers. They put up the stands and take down fences to make more home runs and plague the pitchers. Let them revive the spitter and help the pitchers make a living.”

— Casey Stengel

78. “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

79. “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

80. “Sure I played, did you think I was born at the age of 70 sitting in a dugout trying to manage guys like you?”

— Casey Stengel

81. “You gotta lose ’em some of the time. When you do, lose ’em right.”

— Casey Stengel

82. “Mantle had more ability than any player I ever had on that club.”

— Casey Stengel

83. “Bobby Brown reminds me of a fellow who’s been hitting for 12 years and fielding one.”

— Casey Stengel

84. “It’s wonderful to meet so many friends that I didn’t used to like.”

— Casey Stengel

85. “We are a much improved ball club: now we lose in extra innings!”

— Casey Stengel

86. “Take everything you can get over in center. The Dago’s heel is hurting pretty bad.”

— Casey Stengel

87. “If we’re going to win the pennant, we’ve got to start thinking we’re not as good as we think we are.”

— Casey Stengel

88. “You can’t get into the Hall of Fame unless you limp.”

— Casey Stengel

89. “Why shouldn’t he break Ruth’s record? He’s got more power than Stalin.”

— Casey Stengel

90. “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

91. “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

92. “I got players with bad watches – they can’t tell midnight from noon.”

— Casey Stengel

93. “They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that ones who drink milkshakes don’t win many ball games.”

— Casey Stengel

94. “Once someone gave me a picture and I wrote ‘Do good in school.’ I looked up and the guy was 78 years old.”

— Casey Stengel

95. “I was not successful as a ball player, as it was a game of skill.”

— Casey Stengel

96. “I never saw a player who had greater promise.”

— Casey Stengel

97. “Canzeroni is the only defensive catcher that can’t catch.”

— Casey Stengel

98. “I might have been able to make it as a pitcher except for one thing: I had a rather awkward motion and every time I brought my left arm forward I hit myself in the ear.”

— Casey Stengel

99. “Wake up muscles we’re in New York now.”

— Casey Stengel

100. “You can’t go out to the mound, hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.”

— Casey Stengel