roger_that

Weirdly, I just found this very question being posed on Quora. I am none of the participants, by the way, and think it's just a wacky coincidence that the same question appeared in my Quora feed:https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-New-York-Mets-retire-Casey-Stengels-number-even-though-they-were-terrible-when-he-was-their-managerhttps://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-New-York-Mets-retire-Casey-Stengels-number-even-though-they-were-terrible-when-he-was-their-manager

Scares me and puzzles me. Every chance that the Mets paid big for a player just beginning his slide downhill in their proud tradition of Foster, Bey, Baerga, and Alomar. He could hit anywhere in the lineup, though the first few slots are filled with better OPB guys than he is--he's mainly batted 1, 2, or 3 in the order, I think, but I don't see it here. Has never played an inning in RF, either, but should be able to. Where have they been batting him in Spring Training games? Any consistent slot, or all over the map?

Big year. He and Nimmo at the top of the lineup are the new Dykstra and Backman, Batman and Robin, Butch and Sundance, Brad and Angela. Bust-out year. Both have something to prove and they're gonna put up big numbers in 2022.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Roger that. Zimmo's injuries have mostly been circumstance. I don;t think there's reason to think he's got chronic problems. So he plays 145 games I see your 145, and bid 148.

The over/under for "Nimmo's games played in 2022" stands at 115. I'll take the over. I don't subscribe to the notion that injuries are necessarily causal. Sometimes they're just bad luck, accumulating in a few players who acquire the reputation of fragile for one part of their careers but then vanish. See Paul Molitor. I am very optimistic on Nimmo in 2022. A huge season, MVP votes, maybe an All-Star year.

Maybe somebody could make a large donation to put the Ukrainian flag on the unis? As much as I like this specific idea, I don't like the precedent of getting 'political' on uniforms. You got some kind of problem with red "Mets Are Great Again!" caps with white lettering?

My prayers have been answered!! Of course, I've been beseeching the saints to spare me this moron's voice for quite a few decades now, but I'll take it. There is (was!!) no Mets bullshit he wouldn't eat up with a spoon, and ask for seconds.

This is totally plausible. I wouldn't go so far as to say that sticking it to the Yankees was the Mets' main motivating force in retiring Case's number. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the Mets, internally, decided to retire 37 years earlier, like before Shea Stadium debuted. But it could've been a factor. There's no way that it was lost on the Mets that the most successful manager in Yankees history and the manager that presided over ths Yankees' most dominant dynasty was way more popular with Mets fans. Yeah, 20 posts later we got there - sticking it to the Yankees was an item on the list of "Pros" for retiring his number. Not likely a primary factor, but I'm sure the Mets were happy about it. EXACTLY --what is obviously so to some of us is "preposterous" to others. Nothing like a nice friendly discussion.

Called this one, didn't I?

Look, everyone knows that Casey Stengel was everything you typed and more. But no, you had to preface it with that retiring his number was 'trolling' and then with 'sticking it to the Yanks' which was just plain wrong. Find me anywhere in any medium where anyone has ever said that was the case - except for you, here. I've been very polite, see no reason for you to question (twice) what side of the bed I got up on. Then you go on with the amateur-sophistry act and play the whiny 'it's my opinion' card. Well, no duh. Ok, it isn't my opinion. It's an established fact, known throughout the sporting world, and attested to by the published DIARIES OF M. DONALD GRANT. All I'm trying to say is that someone in the Mets' front office probably thought it would make the Yankees look bad, and would be a popular (if somewhat nonsensical) move with the fans. Firing Stengel in 1960 didn't look good to begin, and hiring him in 1962 was more of a good P.R. move than it was a baseball move, and this was just the cherry on top, an extra little twisting of the knife. The Mets and the Yankees were engaged in that sort of thing a lot. What, do you think signing Yogi to a contract in 1965 was a pure baseball move, too? "Yes, this is our golden opportunity to sign a retired 40-year-old for that crucial third catcher slot. If we play this right, we might be able to get 8 at-bats out of him before he quits in agony." They were pulling the Yankees' chain all the way. Put another way, can you prove it WASN'T done with that intent in mind? Since you can't begin to, may I dismiss your posts as your idiotic opinions, or must I take them as established fact?

Does your bed have two wrong sides? Obviously, it is merely my personal opinion that "trolling the Yankees" was a big motivation for the Mets in retiring 37, and short of finding M. Donald Grant's invention of the term in his secret diary ("LOL! Retiring 37 is a YOOGE troll-job on the NYY!!") it must perforce remain my personal opinion.

=kcmets post_id=88058 time=1648825216 user_id=53] I'm not playing games. The premise was retiring the number was trolling the Yankees. Sticking it to them. I disagreed, still do.

Nothing? I'm not sure what retiring '37' was for. What do you think it was for? He was the inaugural manager for the franchise. A loveable NYC baseball figure. Take a deep breath and realize I'm not disputing any of your points OTHER than his number was retired to stick it to (trolling?) the Yankees. It's a preposterous notion. "Preposterous" is my middle name. Roger P. That. So you give me two other possibilities for honoring Casey like that. (And it is a BIG honor: No "8" for Gary Carter, No "16' for Doc, plenty of other big stars who will never have their numbers retired.) One is that he was "the inaugural manager"--tell me, can you even name "the inaugural manager" of the other three 1961-2 expansion teams? Don't try too hard. You can't. And the other is that he was "loveable"--give me a break. Puppies are loveable. Thai food is loveable. BAMBI is lovable. Linda Ronstadt is lovable. 70-year-old baseball managers, not that much. But let's go back to the other three managers you couldn't even visualize, much less name. This is like a controlled experiment: if four teams are picking their rosters from approximately the same pool of marginal MLB players in approximately the same year and playing against approximately the same established teams, and one of those managers' winning percentages with his expansion team is MUCH, MUCH worse than the other three, what conclusions are you willing to draw about that one manager's managerial skill set? Again, don't think too hard. This is another chip-in shot.

Nothing? I'm not sure what retiring '37' was for. What do you think it was for? 1) They really didn't have anybody worthy of a retired number at that point. I forget the order of retired numbers and the years, but there were just three numbers on the outfield wall at Shea for a long time, Casey, Gil, and Tom Franchise, and I can see the latter two (Gil mostly as an outcropping of sentimentality and emotion about his early death, though he was eight times the Mets manager that Casey was) but I think Casey's 37 was retired as filler. Retiring numbers was cool, but we didn't really have a lot of great players in our history at that point, so Casey was selected. 2) He really was a pretty bad manager, wasn't he? Forget about the W-L record for a second, how much worse would you or I have done managing the 1962 Mets? If you did pretty much the opposite of whatever moves he made, the George Costanza principle, how much worse would it have been possible to do? Casey lost 3 games out of 4--do you think you would have lost 4 out of 5? I don't think a demented chimpanzee would have lost 4 out of 5 games. 3) he got the Mets a lot of ink in his stint as manager, and that's not exactly nothing, but it's pretty close. Retiring someone's number because he got good P.R. and schmoozed with newsmen well? By that standard, Jay Horwitz should be cast in gold. No, they wanted to look like the Good Guys in comparison to the Yankees, which doesn't take much, true.

I'll be surprised if he makes it to opening day without his arm exploding.

Belatedly, it occurs to me that the Mets retiring number 37 in Casey Stengel's honor wasn't really about honoring a great manager as it was to stick it to the Yankees for dissing him. Think about it: Aside from getting them publicity, and managing some piss-poor ballplayers to multiple 100-loss seasons, what was so special about his managing the team for 3 and a half years? Nothing, really. It makes more sense for them to have honored him because the Yankees had fired him, and he was pissed at them ("I'll never turn 70 again!") and this was a really good way to stick a finger in the Yankees' eye. Not to go off a whole 'nother tangent here, but he really wasn't very good, by any standard, as a NY Mets manager: his techniques were outmoded, he alienated and ridiculed his players, he wasn't very good at discovering talent that no one else saw, and the team improved a lot soon after he retired. Does anyone believe that if he hadn't gotten crippled and forced to retire in mid season, the 1969 Mets would have gone on to have the success they did under his leadership? It is to laugh.

Sure, the second you stop asking unanswerable, snotty, provocative "inquiries" designed to annoy people. Oh, you can't? It's built into your DNA? That's a shame.

I keep mulling this one over. I think I was wrong. It was just the idea of losing Mookie and to the Sox, thus turning 1986 into a non-event, that messed me up. Now thinking it over, it might well have worked. Lynn was a better player, all in all, than Mookie. Less lovable, sure. We still could have gotten Keith (for Allen or Reardon, whichever one the Sox left us, and we didn't need them what with Jesse and McDowell coming along. No Ellis Valentine, but that's no loss. I just can't get my head around on Mookie on the Red Sox and Fred Lynn in CF for the Mets. Every time I think about it, my head just esssplodes

Edgy MD wrote: I don't think that was an unreasonable inquiry. Which makes you a very unreasonable person. Thanks so much for affirming that suspicion. Back on planet Earth, there is no doubt that Knight and the Mets had agendas that were difficult to reconcile in the winter of 1986-7. Knight wanted: 1) to be paid a bit more than his 1986 performance warranted (which the Mets could have agreed to, but were by no means required to) 2) to get a two-year deal, as he could see (and feel) his skills and energy eroding (again, not necessarily a deal-breaker for the Mets, but not their wisest option.) Up to here, the Mets could have overpaid and overextended the length of Knight's deal, and it wouldn't have killed them BUT: 1) they probably offered, as the Orioles did, a two year deal with options and bonuses included that could have gotten Knight the money and the length he wanted, except 2) both sides knew that the Mets had many options at 3B (and 1B) that would have (and should have) cut sharply into Knight's playing time and thus his ability to earn the options and bonuses. The Orioles had a vacant spot at 3B, so Knight saw their deal as more lucrative, even if it was for less guaranteed money. The only way, I think, for them to have held onto him was to sweeten the guaranteed money, i.e., pay him star money while sitting him down for much of the season. The only way the Mets' deal would have worked with the bonuses would have been for Hojo and Magadan to have gotten hurt and Knight to have stepped up with a strong season. I'm thinking he saw that as unlikely and so walked away.

I'll need to find my datebook from 1986 to see where I took notes on what Mets fans were saying, and when, and what their full names and current contact info is for ya. I'll get right on that.

The dead body is mine.

In retrospect a horrible, franchise-wrecking error of colossal proportions. I don't remember any outcry at the time. There were those who compared getting McReynolds to the Yankees getting Roger Maris in 1959.

I'm a big HoJo fan, and I was then even more so. This ire is about their lack of loyalty and sentimentality and recognition of what he'd done for the Mets in 1986. I think they should have kept him to play third when Hojo needed a rest, or was playing short, or when Keith needed a break, or when either of them was hurt, and as their primary pinchhitter against lefties. Sure, they would have been overpaying for productivity on the field, but not very much, and it would have done a lot for team spirit, cohesiveness, etc. They could have even made him a player-coach to ease the indignity of losing his starting job. But they chose not to. In retrospect, an error, I think.

Much longer, slightly better, career as a Cardinal

I think they should retire players' favorite foods from the clubhouse post-game spread, and leave the numbers alone.