"Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits"
About this Quote
Stengel’s line lands because it punctures the romantic myth of leadership with a clubhouse-wise shrug. “Managing” isn’t framed as strategy, mentorship, or vision; it’s framed as a compensation scheme. The joke is barbed: the manager cashes checks tied to glory he can’t physically produce anymore, and yet he’s still held responsible for the scoreboard. That tension - being rewarded for outcomes you don’t directly execute, while being blamed when execution fails - is the whole managerial bargain, in baseball and beyond.
The home run is doing a lot of cultural work here. It’s baseball’s cleanest unit of spectacle: individual, decisive, crowd-pleasing. Stengel doesn’t say “runs” or “wins”; he chooses the flashiest currency. Subtext: organizations love a narrative of genius at the top, but the work that actually moves the needle comes from the people with bats in their hands. The manager’s job is to assemble conditions - lineup choices, morale, timing, trust - that make someone else’s swing possible, then accept that the swing still isn’t his.
Context matters: Stengel managed in an era when the manager was both tactician and public face, taking heat from owners, press, and fans. His wit works as self-defense and as truth-telling. It’s a reminder that “credit” in hierarchies often flows upward, not because it’s accurate, but because it’s narratively convenient. The laugh catches because it’s unfair - and because it’s familiar.
The home run is doing a lot of cultural work here. It’s baseball’s cleanest unit of spectacle: individual, decisive, crowd-pleasing. Stengel doesn’t say “runs” or “wins”; he chooses the flashiest currency. Subtext: organizations love a narrative of genius at the top, but the work that actually moves the needle comes from the people with bats in their hands. The manager’s job is to assemble conditions - lineup choices, morale, timing, trust - that make someone else’s swing possible, then accept that the swing still isn’t his.
Context matters: Stengel managed in an era when the manager was both tactician and public face, taking heat from owners, press, and fans. His wit works as self-defense and as truth-telling. It’s a reminder that “credit” in hierarchies often flows upward, not because it’s accurate, but because it’s narratively convenient. The laugh catches because it’s unfair - and because it’s familiar.
Quote Details
| Topic | Management |
|---|---|
| Source | "Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits." — attributed to Casey Stengel; listed on Wikiquote (Casey Stengel page). |
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