an acceptance and a following they could not have obtained without him". James wrote, "Stengel became such a giant character that you really can't talk about him in the past. He became an enduring part of the game". Commissioner William Eckert said of Stengel, "he's probably done more for baseball than anyone". A child of the Jim Crow era, and from a border state (Missouri) with southern characteristics, Stengel has sometimes been accused of being a racist, for example by Roy Campanella Jr., who stated that Stengel made racist remarks from the dugout during the World Series towards his father Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and other black stars of the Dodgers. Bak noted, though, that Stengel was a "vicious and inventive" bench jockey, hazing the other team with whatever might throw off their performance. Stengel had poor relations with Robinson; each disliked the other and was a vocal critic. One widely quoted Stengel comment was about catcher Elston Howard, who became the first black Yankee in 1955, eight years after Robinson had broken the color barrier, "they finally get me a nigger, I get the only one who can't run". Howard, though, denied that Stengel had shouted racial epithets at the Dodgers, and said "I never felt any prejudice around Casey". Al Jackson, a black pitcher with the Mets under Stengel, concurred, "He never treated me with anything but respect". According to Bill Bishop in his account of Stengel, "Casey did use language that would certainly be considered offensive today, but was quite common vernacular in the fifties. He was effusive in his praise of black players like Satchel Paige, Larry Doby and Howard". Conscious of changing times, Stengel was more careful in his choice of words while with the Mets. Stengel was sometimes considered thoughtless or even cruel towards his players. Examples of this include his playing Joe DiMaggio at first base, and sometimes batting Phil Rizzuto ninth, behind the pitcher, as well as his dismissal of the shortshop on Old-Timers' Day in 1956. In spite of their falling out over the 1957 trade, Billy Martin, by then manager of the Yankees, wore a black armband in remembrance of Stengel during the 1976 season, the sole Yankee to do so. According to Creamer, "It doesn't seem to be stretching the point too far to say that Ned Hanlon begat John McGraw who begat Casey Stengel who begat Billy Martin".