He was the manager of the greatest and most colorful teams of all, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Mets. He won an astounding 10 pennants and seven World Series in a dozen years. He was the greatest and best-known humorist in American sporting life for half a century. He went down still fighting, at 85, alone in his bedroom, arguing back at a radio talk-show host. "You're full of * and I'll tell you why," were among his very last words. He was the one and only, the immortal Casey, Casey Stengel. In You Could Look It Up, we at last have the definitive biography of the legendary Casey Stengel -- ballplayer and manager extraordinary. Drawing on his exclusive access to many of Casey's childhood and sports friends, Maury Allen re-creates Stengel's fantastic career with lively humor and warm affection. Casey started out in turn-of-the-century Kansas City as a frontier-town hero who played ball in the scrambling minors. He broke into the majors with the old Brooklyn Dodgers before joining the New York Giants of crusty John McGraw. From the first, Casey enjoyed being a clown, but he also was a shrewd player and an even more professional manager. A surprise choice as pilot for the awesome Yankees, the team which carried on the legends of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig while boasting Joe DiMaggio, he astounded the world with his spectacular success from 1949 through 1960. The most famous Yankees of the 1950s -- ballplayers with names like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Billy Martin -- remain in debt to Casey's managerial genius. But even when his players failed him, he commanded the fans and "my writers" with his outrageous assaults on the English language, the inimitable Stengelese that bewilders and delights one and all to this day. You Could Look It Up is a treasure of anecdotes from and about the great personalities who crossed Casey's path during his incredible 60 years of baseball. Above all, it is a heart-warming and funny tribute to one of America's most enduring folk heroes. - Jacket flap.