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Who really said it

There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them

Attributed to Casey Stengel 1890–1975 · Hall of Fame outfielder and manager (Yankees, Mets)
Attributed In copyright

Stengel almost certainly said it — the Baseball Hall of Fame ↗ prints this exact short form among his own quotations. But the earliest dated printing found, a 23 August 1953 Parade item carried in Wikiquote’s sourced list ↗, reads “There comes a time at least once in every man’s life…” — and no verbatim primary transcript of the trimmed version has been located.

Last verified 8 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Unconfirmed quote & credit

“There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them” Casey Stengel, quoted by Kevin Roberts in Parade, 23 August 1953, and reprinted in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 13 September 1953. The widely circulated short form drops "at least once." Via quotle.info · Verbatim: “There comes a time at least once in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Casey Stengel; Parade and The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for their respective 1953 texts). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Casey Stengel — Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder & manager. Theme: "There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The 1953 printing

Speaker
Casey Stengel — manager, New York Yankees
Earliest printing traced
Parade
Date & relay
23 August 1953, as quoted by Kevin Roberts; reproduced in “Gab with Gatts” by Art Gatts, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 13 September 1953, p. 16
Sourced wording
Contains “at least once” — the popular form drops it

There comes a time at least once in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them. Sourced wording, 1953

The 1953 wording as carried in Wikiquote’s sourced list. No fuller passage survives in any record found here — not the question he was answering, not the paragraph around it. What remains is the sentence, passed from Parade into a newspaper column three weeks later.

Wikiquote: Casey Stengel, sourced quotes

How the line was traced

  • Wikiquote’s Casey Stengel page ↗ carries the line in its sourced quote list as “There comes a time at least once in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them,” credited to Kevin Roberts in the 23 August 1953 issue of Parade and reproduced in “Gab with Gatts” by Art Gatts, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 13 September 1953, p. 16. That is the earliest dated printing found for it.
  • LibQuotes ↗ records the same sentence with “at least once” shifted to after “in every man’s life,” citing Newsweek, Volume 103 (1984) and Stengel: His Life and Times (Dell, 1985), p. 252.
  • The trimmed form is not an internet invention: the National Baseball Hall of Fame ↗ prints “There comes a time in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them” among the Stengel quotations on his Hall of Fame page, with no date or occasion attached.
  • Slate ↗ reports that Stengel’s gravestone reads “There comes a time in every man’s life and I’ve had plenty of them.” He is buried at Forest Lawn–Glendale ↗.
In copyright

This is a spoken remark, and the earliest dated printing found for it is from 1953 — well after the 1931 United States public-domain cutoff — so nothing here is public domain. Quoting a single sentence with attribution is ordinary fair use, but the 1953 Parade item and the newspaper column that reprinted it remain with their publishers, and Stengel’s own words with his estate.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Nobody stole this one — they trimmed it

No rival claimant turned up for this line, and no evidence that it belongs to anyone but Stengel. The problem is not who — it is what: the sentence in circulation has been quietly shaved.

The trimmed version on the quote cards Paraphrase

Aggregators print “There comes a time in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them.” The oldest dated printing found — Wikiquote’s sourced entry ↗, crediting Kevin Roberts in Parade, 23 August 1953 — reads “There comes a time at least once in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them.” Those three words are the joke: a thing that happens at least once, of which he has had plenty.

A second, differently placed variant Variant

LibQuotes ↗ carries the same three words in a different slot — “There comes a time in every man’s life at least once, and I’ve had plenty of them” — citing Newsweek, Volume 103 (1984) and Robert W. Creamer’s Stengel: His Life and Times (Dell, 1985), p. 252. Two records, two placements: what you would expect of a spoken ad-lib retold by writers rather than transcribed.

The name is right and the wit is his: the National Baseball Hall of Fame ↗ lists the short form among Stengel’s own quotations, and Slate ↗ reports it is the line cut into his gravestone. It is the three missing words, not the man, that got lost.

Context

Why the missing words matter

The line is funny for one reason: it collapses in on itself. “There comes a time at least once in every man’s life” already means the thing happens to everybody, once — and then Stengel announces he has had plenty. That is the engine of Stengelese: a sentence that sets up a universal truth and then quietly runs over it. Strip out “at least once” and you still have a joke, but a blunter one.

Timing is worth noting without over-reading it. The Parade item is dated 23 August 1953, mid-season for a Yankees club that would take its fifth consecutive World Series that autumn — a run the Hall of Fame ↗ records as 1949–1953. What occasioned the remark is not stated in any record found here, so treat the date as a date, not a story.

“At least once” is the joke. The internet deletes it and keeps the punchline.

Why spoken lines drift like this

Stengel’s best-known lines were ad-libs caught by sportswriters, not text he wrote and checked. A columnist hears it, paraphrases into his own copy, another paper reprints the column, a biographer reconstructs it decades later — and each hop can lose or shift three words without anyone lying.

That is visible here in miniature: the 1953 record puts “at least once” before “in every man’s life,” while the version citing Newsweek and Robert W. Creamer’s biography puts it after. Same sentence, same speaker, two placements, and a third form — the one on the quote cards — with the phrase gone entirely.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Time Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Casey Stengel — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The sourced quote list, carrying the 1953 Parade citation and the “at least once” wording.
Stengel, Casey — National Baseball Hall of Famebaseballhall.org

His Hall of Fame page: teams, 1966 induction, the five straight titles 1949–1953, and the short form of this line.
Casey Stengel — SABR BioProjectsabr.org

Full scholarly biography, including his 1958 Senate testimony and an account of “Stengelese.”
Casey Stengel quote recordlibquotes.com

The variant placement, cited to Newsweek vol. 103 (1984) and Creamer’s Stengel: His Life and Times (Dell, 1985), p. 252.
Best Yogi-isms — Slateslate.com

Places Stengel beside Berra and reports that this line is the inscription on Stengel’s gravestone.
Casey Stengel — Forest Lawnforestlawn.com

The cemetery’s own page confirming his burial at Forest Lawn–Glendale.

The man behind the line

Who was Casey Stengel?

Casey Stengel

1890–1975 · Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder & manager

Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel played fourteen National League seasons as an outfielder before managing the New York Yankees to ten pennants and seven World Series titles — including five straight from 1949 to 1953, still the only such run — and then presiding, cheerfully, over the early New York Mets. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. What outlived the record was the voice: a looping, clause-piling, subject-losing manner that sportswriters christened Stengelese, and which threw off dozens of lines shaped exactly like this one.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented printing

Casey Stengel, quoted by Kevin Roberts, Parade, August 23, 1953; reproduced in Art Gatts, "Gab with Gatts," The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, September 13, 1953, 16 — as cited in Wikiquote, "Casey Stengel." Sourced wording: "There comes a time at least once in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them."

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-comes-a-time-in-every-mans-life-and-ive-had-plenty-of/

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