Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

The Whiz Kids: How the 1950 Phillies Took the Pennant, Lost the World Series, and Changed Philadelphia Baseball Forever

by Dennis Snelling
Save 26% Save 26%
Current price ₹2,509.00
Original price ₹3,400.00
Original price ₹3,400.00
Original price ₹3,400.00
(-26%)
₹2,509.00
Current price ₹2,509.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9781496242686
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publisher Imprint: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 328
  • Original Price: USD 36.95
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 658 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Baseball / History

Before the 1950 World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies were infamous for a record-breaking lack of achievement that dated from their conception in 1883 through the 1940s. When twenty-eight-year-old Robert Carpenter Jr. took over in 1944, the Phillies had won only a single National League title in more than sixty years. For the next five years, Carpenter and the newly hired general manager, Herb Pennock, would overhaul the team's operations, building a farm system from scratch and spending a fortune on young talent to build a team that would gain immense popularity and finally bring a National League pennant in 1950.

Nicknamed the "Whiz Kids" because they had so many players under thirty, the team caught lightning in a bottle for one season. Although they lost the World Series to the New York Yankees, the team became legendary in Philadelphia and beyond. The Whiz Kids is about a team that shocked everyone by winning, and then shocked everyone by never winning again. It includes a cast of characters and unusual storylines: a first baseman targeted for murder by a woman he had never met; a young catcher from Nebraska, Richie Ashburn, who became a Hall of Fame center fielder and later voice of the team for nearly three decades; a left fielder who lived and played in the shadow of his legendary father, then inspired Ernest Hemingway with the most legendary swing of a bat in franchise history; and a thirty-three-year-old bespectacled relief pitcher who won the Most Valuable Player Award with an undertaker as his personal pitching coach. The team succeeded under the watchful eye of its young owner, whose father handed him the team, and a college professor manager, only to see it slowly crumble as the slowest in the National League to integrate.

The Whiz Kids recounts the history of a team that, though hand-built to be champions, fell short--yet remains legendary anyway.

Dennis Snelling is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He is the author of Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador (Nebraska, 2017), Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life, and The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957.

Trusted for over 48 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us