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While Casey went on to win a pennant for Oakland. Weiss moved up to become the Yankees' general manager. A shrewd, hardheaded businessman, Weiss was, and is, mercilessly efficient. He wasted no time firing Bucky Harris at the end of the 1948 season, sent for Stengel. The Yanks were off and running for their first of five successive pennants.
Weiss was the kind of horse trader who had picked up such stars as Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra practically for peanuts. Gil McDougald cost him only $1,500; Joe DiMaggio came for only $25,000; Mickey Mantle drew a bonus of a scant $1,000. He could also let the good ones go as coolly and quickly as he got them. Vic Raschi got short shrift last year when he kicked about a salary cut; Eddie Lopat and Enos Slaughter were traded away the minute their usefulness ended. Sentiment never won ball games, and during the 23 years Weiss has been with the Yankees they have set a remarkable record of 15 pennants and 13 World Series victories.
Make 'Em Pay. During the last seven of those years, Stengel has understandably edged Weiss out of the spotlight. He has done it by making Yankees out of whoever Weiss got for him. DiMaggio and Keller and Henrich, who won championships, are all gone; so are the great pitchers, Reynolds and Raschi, Lopat and Page. But the Yanks go on—mainly because Casey Stengel honestly believes that to be a Yankee is something special, and he never lets his players forget it. He gets them good salaries, blasts the front office for nickel-nursing policies, draws down a reported $100,000 a year himself, and insists that every Yankee is worth every penny he gets.
"Make 'em pay," he tells his men when they are asked for special interviews or to make personal appearances. "Make 'em pay you a thousand dollars. Don't go help those people with their shows for coffee-and-cake money. You're the Yankees—the best. Make 'em pay you high." Crossing the Bar. This respect for the dollar has made Casey himself a rich man —mostly because he wisely invested his early winnings in real estate and oil. He could, if he entertained the outrageous thought, retire in luxury and ease. But the very idea terrifies him. He wants to be a Yankee all his life.
He wants to be a Yankee so much that he sputters with envy and anger when he attends annual "alumni" meetings and listens to oldtimers rant about "the real old Yankees." A couple of years ago, Waite Hoyt, a first-rate pitcher of the Babe Ruth era, tearfully talked about his great teammates "who have passed into Valhalla." Casey couldn't stand it. "If I remember right, this fella Hoyt used to be a mortician," he said when it came his turn to speak. "It used to be his business to cry over those fellas. But this cry must be on the house." Then Casey sat down and bawled.
On most other occasions, Casey is a much more jovial actor. Professional comics have refused to follow him to the microphone after his after-dinner speeches.
He is too good. He acts out every story.