Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 108

Kansas City's Central High School. His basketball team won the city championship, while the baseball team won the state championship.

As a teenager, Stengel played on a number of semipro baseball teams. He played on the traveling team called the Kansas City Red Sox during the summers of 1908 and 1909, going as far west as Wyoming and earning a dollar a day. He was offered a contract by the minor league Kansas City Blues for $135 a month, more money than his father was making. Since young Stengel was underage, his father had to agree, which he did. Louis Stengel

recalled; "So I put down my paper and signed. You could never change that boy's mind anyway."

Before reporting to spring training for the Blues in early 1910

at Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Stengel was approached by his neighbor, Kid Nichols, a former star pitcher, who advised him to listen to his manager and to the older players, and if he was minded to reject their advice, at least think it over for a month or so first. Stengel failed to make the ball club, which was part of the American Association, which was considered one of the top minor leagues. Kansas City optioned Stengel to the Kankakee Kays of the Class D Northern Association, a lower level

minor league, to gain experience as an outfielder. He had a .251 batting average with Kankakee when the league folded in July. He