Casey Stengel - Early Career

Early Career

Stengel was athletically inclined and played various sports in grade school and high school, including baseball, football and basketball. He had no particular vision of sports as a long-term profession, and he had aspirations of a career in dentistry. As described in his autobiography, on pages 58 and 75-76, he saved enough money from his early minor league experience in 1910-1911 to train to become a dentist. He had some problems due to the lack of left-handed instruments and the training was a struggle. Meanwhile, his minor league career picked up, as he was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers and spent most of the 1912 season playing for the Montgomery, Alabama, club in the Southern Association. He had "a pretty good year" with Montgomery, batting .290 with a reputation as a good base stealer. He was brought up to the Dodgers late in the season, and baseball soon became his primary occupation.

In 1914 he got in touch with his baseball and football coach from Kansas City, Bill Driver, who was the football and basketball coach at the University of Mississippi. Stengel coached the Ole Miss baseball team to a 13-9 record. This is where he earned the nickname "The Old Perfessor".