Casey Stengel, speaking with reporters in December 1964 at MLB's Winter Meetings, as recalled by then-Cleveland Press reporter Bob Sudyk, and quoted in "Casey at the Bar: A Writer's Recollection of Stengel Stingers and Suite Stories" by Sudyk in The Hartford Courant (March 14, 1993), p. 18
“

Now the secret to successful managing is to break down your club. The first 15 guys you don't have to bother with. They are always playing and don't need the manager. The next five play only occasionally, so you got to keep buttering them up. The last five you gotta watch all the time because they're plotting to get you fired.

— Casey Stengel on Manager

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Now the secret to successful managing is to break down your club. The first 15 guys you don't have to bother with. They are always playing and don't need the manager. The next five play only occasionally, so you got to keep buttering them up. The last five you gotta watch all the time because they're plotting to get you fired." in the context of "Casey Stengel, speaking with reporters in December 1964 at MLB's Winter Meetings, as recalled by then-Cleveland Press reporter Bob Sudyk, and quoted in "Casey at the Bar: A Writer's Recollection of Stengel Stingers and Suite Stories" by Sudyk in The Hartford Courant (March 14, 1993), p. 18" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Manager" (Quotes, S) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Casey Stengel

About Casey Stengel

Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (30 July 1890 – 29 September 1975) was an American baseball player and manager from the early 1910s into the 1960s. In the 1950s, sportswriters dubbed him with yet another nickname, "The Old Perfessor", for his sharp wit and his ability to talk at length on anything baseball-related. He is regarded as one of baseball's more colourful personalities.