Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 125

profits in California real estate. Stengel considered going in the oil business full time, but Braves president Bob Quinn offered him the Boston managerial job in late 1937, and he accepted.

Stengel was both manager and an investor in the Braves. In his six years there, 1938 to 1943, his team never finished in the top half of the league standings. The entry of the United States in World War II meant that many top players went into the service, but for the Braves, the changeover made little difference in the standings.

A few days before the opening of the 1943 season, Stengel was hit by a vehicle while crossing Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and he severely fractured a leg. He missed the first two months

of the season, receiving many well wishes, and reading get well cards jokingly misaddressed to the hospital's psychiatric ward. For the rest of his life, Stengel walked with a limp. At the end of the season, Braves management, tired of minimal progress, fired Stengel, and he received no immediate job offers.

Stengel testified about this part of his career before a Senate subcommittee fifteen years later. "I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there is no question I had to leave."