Series! (1940s)

Mike Schilling

Mike has been a software engineer far longer than he would like to admit. He has strong opinions on baseball, software, science fiction, comedy, contract bridge, and European history, any of which he's willing to share with almost no prompting whatsoever.

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4 Responses

  1. Burt Likko says:

    Dodgers-Yankees is the classic Series matchup, IMO. In no small part becuase of the excellence of play in the ’47 and ’49 series, and the immortals who played in it.Report

  2. ScarletNumbers says:

    the growing understanding that Casey Stengel was the smartest man in baseball.

    I think this statement comes a little too soon. After all, it was still only his first year with the Yankees.

    In 9 years as a National League manager, his winning permillage* was 439. He did win two minor league pennants afterwards: with the Milwaukee Brewers of the AA and the Oakland Oaks of the PCL. This was in an era when the PCL was a high level of baseball, just short of major league.

    I find it interesting the parallels between Stengel and Joe Torre. Torre was considered a medicore manager in the NL before he managed the Yankees; he won one divisional championship in 14 seasons. Then he manages the Yankees to 4 out of the next 5 World Series wins. It is a only a bit of an over-simplification to say that only Sandy Alomar Jr** stood in the way of Torre replicating Stengel.

    Stengel and Torre are also the only men to have managed the Mets, Braves, Yankees, and Dodgers.

    *Since it is given to three places, it is silly to call it a “percentage”
    **His dad, Sandy Alomar Sr, was on-deck when Chris Chambliss hit the 1976 ALCS clinching home runReport

    • Mike Schilling in reply to ScarletNumbers says:

      The biggest difference is in how they won. Stengel was incredibly hands-on, shuffling lineups, platooning, changing the Yankees from a team that won because it always had the best players to one that scuffled but found some way to win, During his twelve years as manager *(10 pennants, 7 championships), how many superstars did he have? Other than a few years of a fading DiMaggio, just Mantle, Berra, and Ford. Arguably Rizzuto. The rest was mixing, matching, and fitting players into the best role for them.

      Torre, on the other hand, had the biggest payroll in baseball to work with, and his great gift was for keeping the combined density of player egos from going critical and exploding.Report