Worst Baseball Team Ever

"I remembered another thing," Casey said after the game. "Once when I had Ford goin' for 20 games over with the Yankees Woodling beats him with a home run down in Baltimore. What the hell, don't tell me he can't hit a lefthander. I remember him doin' it, and that's why I put him in there."

A few lockers down, Woodling was talking about the manager.

"I was with him for five championships with the Yankees," he was saying, "and he and I had our differences. It's nothing new. Everybody knew that. But I've never seen anybody like him this year. This is a real professional."

You could see it a day later, when Casey and his Mets came into the dressing room after losing a doubleheader to the Cards. The manager had a wax container of beer in his hand and he was growling about a call that he said cost him the first game.

"The man don't even know the rules," Casey was saying. "My man was in a rundown between third and home and when he tries to go to home the catcher trips him right on the baseline. You could see the chalk was all erased. The umpire don't call it. Costs me a game. It was an awful thing."

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 particularly costly plays by Throneberry and Charlie Neal.

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

No broken furniture

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."