Casey Stengel Marquee Hall of Fame 1966

He played 1,277 games from 1912 to 1925, 1,183 of them in the outfield, with 1,219 hits, 60 home runs, 535 runs batted in and 131 stolen bases. He was known for clowning while he did it, which is what people remembered until the managing gave them something else.

The managing record divides in two. With the Yankees from 1949 to 1960 he went 1,149-696 and finished first ten times; with Brooklyn, Boston and then the Mets from their first season he went 756-1,146 and never finished first at all. The whole of it is 1,905 wins against 1,842 losses over twenty-five seasons, which is why he was thought a clown before he was thought a genius.

He talked in long circles that reporters called Stengelese and that a Senate committee heard a full hour of in 1958. He appeared on ten Hall of Fame ballots as a player and got nowhere; the Veterans Committee elected him in 1966 as a manager, the year after he stopped.