Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel made his professional baseball debut as the center fielder for the Kankakee Kays. No, not the local high school, but the Class C team in the minor league Northern Association.
For the 19-year-old Stengel, a native of Kansas City, Missouri (thus the “Casey” nickname), it was the first step in a 53-year baseball career in which he earned nine World Series Championship rings — two as a player, and seven as a manager. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.
Stengel’s stint in a Kankakee Kays uniform was short, lasting less than three months. He was signed by the Kansas City Blues of the American Association in Spring, 1910, and promptly optioned to the Kankakee team to gain experience. From May until mid-July, Stengel roamed the outfield and compiled a respectable .251 batting average in games against league opponents such as Muscatine, Iowa, and Joliet, Decatur, and Elgin, Illinois. The team also played against local competition, including a team composed of employees of Kankakee State Hospital.
Plagued by financial problems, the Northern Association collapsed on July 11, 1910. Stengel found himself without a team, and was owed $67.50 for two-weeks’ pay. When he left town, he kept his Kays uniform (the back pay and the uniform would become a news item some half-century later).
Stengel’s 1910 season resumed when he was reassigned to another minor league club, the Maysville, Kentucky, Rivermen. He reached the majors late in the 1912 season, called up by the Brooklyn Dodgers. His major league debut in center field was spectacular: four hits, two runs batted in, and three stolen bases in a 7-3 defeat of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
After 13 years as a player for five different teams, Stengel joined the managerial ranks, spending almost a decade guiding minor league teams. In 1934, he returned to “the bigs” as manager of the Dodgers. After a return to minor-league managing from 1943 to 1948, he assumed the job for which he is most remembered, managing the New York Yankees.
During the 11 seasons (1949-1960) that he managed powerhouse Yankee teams, Stengel compiled a record seven world championships. Five of those winning seasons were in an unbroken row: 1949 to 1953. At the end of the 1960 season, at the age of 70 (and despite his seventh world championship), Stengel was fired by the Yankees. He finished his baseball career managing the New York Mets from 1962 to 1965.
While at the peak of his managing career in the mid-1950s, Stengel made a passing reference to the back pay he was owed since his 1910 playing days in Kankakee. At a Kansas City dinner honoring his 66th birthday, he was asked by a reporter how long he planned to stay in baseball. Stengel replied that he hoped to remain in the game long enough to collect the $67.50 in back pay from Kankakee, and that if he received the pay, he would return the Kankakee Kays uniform he had taken with him when he left town.
Stengel’s remarks came to the attention of W.A. Schneider, President of the Kankakee Federal Savings and Loan Association. Schneider and other members of the Association’s management decided it was time “to clear the good name of our community.” He wrote to the Yankee skipper, explaining that the “back pay” amount that would currently be due to Stengel ($67.50 plus 46 years of dividend earnings) amounted to $483.05.
“In order to set things right,” wrote Schneider, “the folks at Kankakee Federal Savings will be mighty happy to send you a check in the amount of $483.05 in exchange for the return of that tired old uniform.”
The Association hoped to display the Kankakee Kays uniform in a window of its building at Schuyler Avenue and Merchant Street during the 1956 World Series. Following its time in the window, the uniform would be donated to the Kankakee County Historical Society.
Unfortunately, Stengel was unable to locate the uniform he had last worn almost a half-century earlier. “Your letter, naturally, was a challenge to me to produce the uniform,” wrote Stengel in his reply to Schneider. “On our recent western trip, I spent an entire afternoon in the attic of my sister’s house searching for it, but to no avail.
“Inasmuch as my efforts to produce the uniform have been fruitless, I cannot accept my $67.50 with its accumulated earnings. However, if you feel so inclined may I suggest this amount be donated to your local Little Leagues for the benefit of those youngsters who love the game of baseball as I do.”
Schneider agreed with the Yankee manager’s recommendation. At a Chicago Baseball Writers’ dinner in January 1957, Casey Stengel was presented three checks totaling $483.05. He immediately endorsed the checks, then handed them over to a representative of the three local baseball programs (the Kankakee Jaycees, Kankakee Lions, and Bradley-Bourbonnais Little Leagues).
Through the years, a number of Kankakee-area baseball players have worn major league uniforms. One of the earliest to do so signed with the Chicago White Sox in 1924. Who was he?
Answer: John “Bud” Clancy, a graduate of Bourbonnais’ St. Viator College. Clancy, a native of Odell, played first base for the Sox until 1930. His final years in the majors were spent with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1930, he set an unusual record, becoming the first major league first baseman to record no putouts in a nine-inning game.