"Charles Dillon Stengel, the renowned hocus-pocus artist, pulled the wrong rabbit out of the hat yesterday. All week long he had been giving with the Mumbo Jumbo as he muttered his baffling incantations in the dugout. He never identified him by name, of course, but he kept mumbling about Bill Stafford, the 23-year-old rookie pitcher who joined the Yankees after midseason. "I ain't afraid to start that kid," he said over and over in more disjointed style than usual. "Green pea. Keeps the ball low. Don't get scared. Good fast ball. Keeps the ball low. Cool customer which I ain't afraid to start but we'll see which way the thing rolls." Stengel sounded suspiciously like a man trying to convince himself. In that he failed. After hesitating between the novice, Stafford, and Art Ditmar, an old hand at World Series play, the Ol' Perfessor ceremoniously selected Ditmar to pitch the fifth game. Before he could yank Ditmar and produce Stafford, the game was lost."
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Sources
Arthur Daley, in “Sports of the Times: Unfurling the Jolly Roger” by Daley, in The New York Times (Tuesday, October 11, 1960), p. 59
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/1960_World_Series
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1960 World Series
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