Casey

Anyone who might have been following baseball in the 1950s and 60s was lucky to have some of their life coincide with Casey Stengel. Stengel, the legendary Yankee manager, got the first word in and all the other words that followed. He made colorful comparisons and metaphors, that when they were unwound and translated from 'Stengelese', made perfect sense. They were insightful.  

There are books on Casey Stengel that you can go to that will automatically give you examples of his syntax. But more fun is had when someone else quotes Casey for something he said and they drop it into the story they're writing. Take an anthology of John Lardner columns, 'The John Lardner Reader.' Many sports are covered by Mr. Lardner's columns. So it's no surpise that Casey slips into one of them as John reports on a story about 'The All-American Rookie,' a true tale of a pre-season wannbe who reports to various spring training camps trying to bluff his way onto a roster.

The wannabe's name is Lou Mandel, and he made annual apprearances at Florida training camps trying out for teams as a pitcher. He really couldn't pitch worth a damn, as Lardner describes Lou's fastball as capable of "breaking an egg two of five times, if he happened to hit the egg."  Certainly not what any team needed.

Mr. Mandel was never discouraged by his prformance, and told the managers of teams that they better sign him to a contract worth somewhere in the five figure range, or else they'd find him playing for the opposition and casing huge regret over not being signed by the team he's now approached. A signing never occurred.

The instance that Mr. Lardner enlightens on was with Casey Stengel, who in this case does a bit of translating of Mr. Mandel's line when he asks to be quickly signed, or else he'll go home and take the $25,000 proposition that's waiting for him there.

Casey saw right through this, and figured out that "what he means is that he can go home and turn himself over to the cops and collect $25,000 reward. Especially if he brings himself in dead."

This is more profound than you might think. If a criminal has a price on their head, and they turn themselves in for the reward, are the people who are offering the reward obligated to pay the fugitive? They did, afterall, lead the authorities to themselves for the arrest.

It is not known how any of this works, or if someone thought that scenario through all the way. For what it's worth, Mr. Mandel kept drifting in and out of spring training appearances and eventually drifted away altogether.

As for the hanging thought introduced by Casey, what if the notorious Whitey Bulger had turned himself in for the reward after his image lite up Times Sqaure? Could he add it to $800,000 in cash that the authorities found in his condo walls? And what if Whitey somehow turned himself in dead?

Double indemnity?

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