This Day In MLB History…

January 27, 1944: Lou Perini, Guido Rugo, and Joe Maney gain control of the Braves and relieve manager Casey Stengel of his duties.

Man, talk about a monumental mistake. However, at the time that Casey Stengel was fired by the Braves, he was nothing more than a so-so manager. In his first nine seasons as a skipper, he won 581 games with the Dodgers and Braves organization, but never placed higher than fifth, obviously not leading to any post-season baseball. Once he was let go by the Braves, he didn’t lead a team for another six years- until the Yankees gave him a chance in 1949.

The Bronx Bombers did have some successful seasons after Joe McCarthy made his exit in 1946, but in that three year span, they had three different men manage the team. They needed someone to be a stabilizing factor, someone who could bring sustained success to an already prestigious organization.

That’s exactly what Stengel was able to do; in his 12 seasons as manager in New York, he won 1,149 games, including 10 American League Pennants and seven World Series titles. He won five titles in his first five years as manager (as you can see in the above picture). This reminds me a lot of Joe Torre’s managerial career; he had moderate success until he came to New York and won four titles in a five-year span.

Before Peroni, Rugo, and Maney had to start looking up at Stengel holding the World Series trophy at the end of virtually every year, they probably felt they made a good business decision…not so much.

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