Worst Baseball Team Ever

He kept talking about this one play, as if nothing else had happened during the long afternoon. He was going to give "my writers," as he calls newspapermen, something to put in the paper the next day. And maybe it would give these 25 beaten players getting dressed in the room with him something to get mad about. Maybe it would help a little.

When he stopped rasping about the play for a moment, he was asked about a couple of costly plays by Throneberry and Neal.

"Aaahhh!" Casey said. "Bonehead. They was bonehead plays. Damn bonehead plays." His eyes flashed.

Then he leaned back and spoke in a soft voice. "Look," he said. "I can't change a man's life. I got four or five guys who are going to make it up here. The rest of them, we just got to get along with. I'm not goin' to start breakin' furniture because of them. It's the man and I got him and I can't change his life."

Then he got dressed and a guy named Freddie picked up his suitcase and led him out of the dressing room. They had a taxi-cab waiting across the street, in front of an old, one-story brick-front place named Gus & Marge's Tavern. Casey pushed through the crowd and got into the taxi. He was carrying on a running conversation with the crowd as he shut the door and the taxi started to pull away.

It was, you figured, the way it should be. For more than 50 years now, Casey Stengel has been getting into taxis in front of old saloons across the street from ballparks. He has done this with great teams and with bad teams. Now he has the worst outfit anybody ever saw. But even if the players don't belong, Stengel does. He'll be back next year.

God help him.