Success Quote by Casey Stengel

Stengel’s line lands because it treats failure not as an outcome but as an education - a whole curriculum of heartbreak. The joke isn’t merely that the Mets lose; it’s that they lose creatively, inventively, with a kind of perverse artistry that keeps even a seasoned baseball lifer surprised. Coming from Stengel, a famously wry old pro, the exaggeration reads as both punchline and weary scouting report: I’ve seen everything in this game, and somehow this team is still finding new trapdoors.

The context matters. Stengel managed the Mets at their birth in 1962, when the franchise was an expansion patchwork designed to lose while it learned to exist. That inaugural team went 40-120, a record so bad it bordered on performance art. His quote functions as a pressure valve for a city and a fan base asked to care about a product that was, structurally, not built to win yet. Humor becomes the only honest public relations strategy.

Subtext: Stengel is also protecting people. He’s deflecting blame from players who were overmatched and from an organization that hadn’t stocked the cupboard. By framing defeat as novelty, he turns humiliation into narrative: not incompetence, but misadventure. It also slyly flatters the audience’s endurance - if the losses are endless and surprising, then sticking around makes you part of the story.

That’s why the line has outlived the season. It captures the early DNA of Mets fandom: hope with a wince, loyalty with a laugh, and the suspicion that disaster isn’t just possible - it’s endlessly inventive.