Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 35

If the Philadelphia Phillies had any New Year’s resolutions to wish for with the ringing in of the 1950s, it would have likely been to make everyone forget about the 1940s.

It had been a largely disgraceful era for the Phillies, even when compared to their dark days at decrepit Baker Bowl in the preceding decades. The franchise teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1940s and struggled through a succession of short term owners. After the front office stabilized with DuPont vice president Robert Carpenter’s purchase of the club in 1946, the Phillies wallowed through a public relations disaster

in 1947, and most of all because the team still wasn’t winning.

Chapman was fired in 1948, immediately fixing one problem. Back in the Phillies’ executive offices, the issue of winning was on

its way to being successfully addressed by the team’s general manager, former New York Yankees pitcher Herb Pennock, who had shrewdly pieced together a collection of young and talented players that would begin a gradual rise in the standings. By 1950, this collection—forever to be remembered as the Whiz Kids, was ready to make a definitive statement to the rest of baseball. Pennock died in 1948 before he had the chance to see the fruits of his labor.