Events & Discoveries

Too Late

Know what? Casey Stengel isn't going to manage the Braves next year after all and this is why. Braves owner Lou Perini was too slow in asking.

"That ball club of yours," Lou told Case one day as they both neared the end of a three-hour plane ride, "isn't going anywhere. It's too old and you'll never get it built up again. Why don't you come and manage for us?"

"Lou," said Casey, looking Milwaukee's proprietor straight in the eye, "I've been waiting over two hours for you to say that. But when you didn't I said to myself just 15 minutes ago the hell with it, I'll stay right where I am."

Oh, yes, the man Perini finally got for the job is ex-Dodger Coach and Manager (and two-time pennant winner) Chuck Dressen.

Mr. Stephens Reserves a Seat

The men who look like Harry Truman are legion and D. Mallory Stephens might well lead their parade. Smallish, bespectacled, energetic, outspoken, peppery and incisive, he is, in short, full of the Old Harry. Like Mr. Truman, he is also a retired politician, in so far as such a thing is possible. Now a banker and insurance man, Stephens was a New York State Assemblyman for 27 years. In addition, D. Mallory Stephens has a soft spot in his heart for the military, especially the U.S. Air Force.

When Mr. Stephens learned through a friend that the Air Force-Army game was scheduled to be played at West Point's Michie Stadium before a mere 27,000 spectators, with only 2,500 tickets allotted to Air Force fans, he was outraged. Generally outraged for the Air Force, that is, and specifically worried that he himself might not get a ticket to see the game.

"Besides," said Mr. Stephens last week, "I could see the trip was going to cost the Air Force more than they'd get from the game, and that a lot of the Air Force's friends and people wouldn't be able to see it. This exercised me. My eldest son had been in the Air Force and I think it's one helluva outfit.

" 'Why not get Yankee Stadium?' I said. After all, I figured the first visit of the Air Force Academy to New York should draw a real crowd and Yankee Stadium holds 67,000. I had no assurance I could get the two schools to agree to the change, but I figured I ought to have a stadium before I started anything."