"Baseball insiders were stunned when Casey Stengel was named manager of the New York Yankees for 1949. His work managing the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves was long on personality but remarkably short on success. The media thought the Yankees would never be able to compete with the Red Sox or Indians with "that clown" in charge." "The quintessentially resilient Stengel endured bad breaks, learned from them, and emerged stronger for the experience. In trying to win with the star-poor Dodgers and Braves, he learned strategic techniques that would later help him win with the Yankees. Thus Steven Goldman refutes claims that Stengel's Yankees were so talented that any manager could have won with them. Rather, the Yankees required constant rebuilding, and after running two of the game's sad-sack franchises Stengel knew how to cope. Goldman retraces Stengel's baseball education in playing for the great John McGraw, from whom he also learned that success permits no room for nostalgia. Goldman follows Stengel through those formative years with the Dodgers and Braves, his return to the minors, a spat with Bill Veeck, and his success as a businessman away from the diamond, all of which contributed to his Yankees success."--Jacket.