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

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 ch