Motivation Quote by Casey Stengel

Stengel is pretending to complain about a single kind of player, but he is really laying down a whole philosophy of winning: run production that doesn’t prevent runs is just noise. The line works because it’s both folksy and brutally actuarial. “Drive in two” sounds like hero stuff, the newspaper kind of contribution. “Let in three” is the quiet leak that sinks the boat. In one sentence he punctures baseball’s romance with the clutch RBI and drags you back to the cold arithmetic of run differential.

The phrasing matters. “Them fellas” makes it sound like barstool grumbling, not doctrine, which is classic Stengel: he smuggles hard managerial truth inside a comic, half-mangled idiom. It’s also a subtle jab at the way fans and even front offices used to evaluate players - praising visible offense while forgiving (or ignoring) defense and pitching responsibility. Stengel, who managed in the era before WAR spreadsheets but after plenty of heartbreak, is intuitively arguing for something modern analysts would call net value.

Context sharpens it. Stengel’s Yankees were machines built on depth, pitching, and clean defense as much as star bats. On a team trying to win 95-plus games, “good enough” contributions can be actively harmful if they come packaged with liabilities. The subtext is managerial control: don’t get seduced by a guy’s highlight; ask what he costs you. It’s a warning against sentimental accounting - and against mistaking activity for advantage.