Catch Hold Of The Whiz Kids And The 1950 Pennant Fashioned By Robin Roberts Provided As Digital Version

usually avoid the athleteasauthor sub genre, as the books are usually full of selfserving fluff Bob Gibson's Stranger to the Game being a notable exception.
However, I really wanted to read a book about The Whiz Kids and this was my only option.
Lucky for me, it turned out to be a near fivestar read, with Roberts combining with C.
Paul Rogers III to produce a wellwritten narrative about the formation of this unusual team and the story of theirpennant chase.
Balancing youwerethere observations with continuing story lines and background, they manage to relate the story of theseason without boring the reader with an endless parade of game summaries.
This is a great story about a fabulous pennant race that makes you realize how much we've lost through a ridiculous playoff system with too many teams with no loyalty to community.
Robin Roberts did a fine job reconstructing the precursor to the Whiz Kids stunningpennant winning Phillies team and the aftermath.
I'm always awestruck by the ability of major league players to remember details of games decades earlier.
In Robie's case, he has a virtual photographic memory of game situations, He wrote the book inover four decades after the near miraculous season, I enjoyed the short segments of interviews with his teammates throughout the book from Andy Seminick, Curt Simmons, Richie AshburnRuss Mad Monk Meyer, Bubba Church, Bob Miller, Mike Goliat, Del Ennis, Dick Sisler, and even short term guys like Johnny Blatnick and Dick Whitman.
Granny Hamner died while waiting to be interviewed and Eddie Waitkus had passed twenty years before, Robie falls short when it comes to the World Series, It seemed like he had written too many pages, so we get very little insight into the series or the personality of the Yankee opponents.
But the march to the pennant was exciting especially since I had not known that the Phillies had beenand a half games up in the standings with only eleven to play and the wondrous season came down to the last day of the season in Ebbets Field against the Dodgers with Roberts against Newcombe for what seemed like an every day occurrence.
Of course the famous throw by Ashburn to nail Cal Abrams at the plate in what would have been the winning run and a pennant for Brooklyn and the clutch home run by Dick Sisler is still magical.
I loved the insight into manager Eddie Sawyer as portrayed by all the members of the team.
Once a Cornell Professor, he let the players play the game and encouraged them rather than micro manage the team.
Sadly the high hopes for the Whiz Kids faded with the loss of Simmons and some veterans afterand as Ashburn said, the failure of owner Bob Carpenter to obtain black players may have been the worst mistake for the teams chances.
Roy Campanella wanted to play for the Phillies, but Carpenter was not interested, and he paid the price:the Phillies never won again with those youngsters and a few key veteran players.
One other fact I found particularly interesting, When Robie was inducted into the Hall of Fame his plaque did not mention the Whiz Kids.
He was very upset and launched a one man campaign to have the

museum change the plaque to reflect the team that Roberts was so proud to have been a member.
Overall, this is a fine piece of history, The only reason I didn't give itis because I had recently read Robin's autobiography in which he replicates in full many chapters that are in this book so it was a rehash for me.
I had wanted to read this book for a while now but never got around to doing it until now.
First off, I just want to say I think it's incredible how Robin Roberts can remember events that happened decades ago in great detail.
This provided me with in depth detail of what it was like for him to play baseball in his time and allowed me to become engrossed in the many interesting stories he shared, especially the journey of the Phillies to thePennant.


The book shows a few of the ups and many of the downs the team and management of the Phillies had to contend with over many decades to get to the position they needed to be in for that miracle run in.
However, one scene in particular that stuck with me from this book was the shooting of Eddie Waitkus.
To make a long story short, an overzealous fan of Eddie shot and almost killed him in what has become known as one of the earliest cases of fan stalking.
The events leading up to it and afterwards are very tragic and should be a life lesson for anyone who knows the whole story.


Anyway, I thought it was cool how the staff, players, and managers had some of their viewpoints and commentary sprinkled throughout the book as it showed how they felt during certain events while giving the reader a personal connection to the Whiz Kids and what they went through.
However, most of the games described blended together and almost bored me from reading the rest of the book.
Mind you I had started out reading the first three chapter of the book but had to set it aside due to the slow narrative which was a downer for me.
Don't get me wrong a few of the games were pretty exciting to read about but compared to the not so well known games, they were too few and far between.


Overall, I would recommend this to sports readers, especially those who like reading about baseball.
Also, if you're a Pennsylvanian like me, you get to enjoy the legacy of the Whiz Kids that can never be taken away from us and will live on in history! I recently met Robin Roberts, a fine gentleman indeed and charter member of the legendaryPhillies.
He gave me the book, It's a real insider's look at baseball when it truly was our national pastime, ThePhillies unexpectedly captured the hearts and imaginations of Philadelphians, This work features this inspiring era in Phillies history, with the personal reflections of Robin Roberts, a Hall of Famer and arguably the best righthanded pitcher in Phillies history.
.