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February 09, 2007
If The Ol' Perfessor Only Had Some Bigelow Green Tea...
...maybe then he would have remembered better in his senior years?
A cute Casey Stengel story (is that redundant?) via Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame member Larry Foss:
Foss was 1-1 with three starts in the final month of the 1961 season. He was then picked up on waivers by the New York Mets and had five appearances during the Mets' first season as an organization. It was simply a crazy time in the Big Apple, with the Mets losing 120 of 160 games that season with Casey Stengel as the manager.
"He was at the end of his career and I think the only reason they hired him was to sell tickets," Foss said. "I'll never forget sitting in the bullpen in the Polo Grounds and Red Ruffing was our pitching coach. The bullpen phone rang and Ruffin answered. He talked for about two or three seconds and then hung up the phone.
"He said, 'You're not going to believe who the old man asked for.' He had asked for Johnny Blanchard to come down from the bullpen and pinch hit. Blanchard was still playing for the (New York) Yankees. (Ruffin) said, 'I hope he doesn't call back.' It was one of those years."
Posted by Steve Lombardi at February 9, 2007 12:24 PM