Letters

Dutch Stengle
I enjoyed all the articles in your Special Classic Edition (July 19). Regarding Casey Stengel's choice of baseball over dentistry as a career (What Might Have Been), my father-in-law, Dr. R.C. Stewart, was one class ahead of Stengel at Western Dental College in Kansas City, Mo. He told me that the dental school had a baseball team at the time, but that the dean made the students stop playing because they were ruining their fingers. Stengel dropped out of school shortly thereafter. The school's 1912 yearbook, Opsonin, includes a picture of Stengel's class and the following entry under juniors: "C.D. Stengle, 'Dutch' for short. Down South now playing baseball. Not at all talkative."

Should we note a bit of editorial sarcasm in the last sentence? By the way, the yearbook spelled Casey's name as I have typed it, not Stengel.
JIM SAYES
Tallahassee, Fla.