Whitey's Boys: A Celebration of the '82 Cards World Championship [Hardcover]

Rob Rains (Author), Alvin Reid (Author), Whitey Herzog (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

The St. Louis Cardinals last celebrated a World Championship in 1982, and that milestone is commemorated in WHITEY'S BOYS, a twentieth anniversary reminiscence of that great team and its players. This book is more than just a collection of memories from that special season, however. It also tells the story of what has happened to those players since that magical summer, updating their fans on where they live, what they're doing, and what's happenedto them in the intervening years. Joaquin Andujar has returned to the Dominican Republic. Tom Herr's son Aaron, a frequent batboy for the team in 1982, is now playing in the Braves' farm system. George Hendrick is managing a team in the California League. John Stuper is the baseball coach at Yale. These and dozens of other players' stories are included in the book, as is, of course, the newest member of the Hall of Fame, Ozzie Smith. Written in the style of the classic THE BOYS OF SUMMER, and based entirely on first person interviews, WHITEY'S BOYS retraces all the great moments in the players' lives and talks about what their career has meant to them, especially now that it's over. Whitey Herzog has contributed stories and anecdotes about each of the players as well as written the foreword to the book.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The St. Louis Cardinals, winners of the 1982 World Series, hit just 67 homers during the regular season yet were one of the most exciting teams in baseball history. Fans still hear analysts discussing the importance of pitching and defense, but seldom does one experience either when watching major-league baseball. The Cards, playing on artificial turf in cavernous Busch Stadium, constructed a team of excellent fielders, steady pitchers, and productive line-drive hitters. Rains and Reid re-create the team's championship season through interviews with 17 team members, most of whom discuss how the Cards generated offense without the threat of the long ball. Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith, first baseman Keith Hernandez, and center fielder Willie McGhee were the team's stars, but the catalyst was manager Whitey Herzog, who proved that his trinity of speed, defense, and pitching could win a championship. A lost era, perhaps, but fans will find themselves longing for the days when home runs were an exciting side dish, not the main course. Engaging oral history. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Rob Rains is the author of several books on the St. Louis Cardinals, including the autobiographies of Jack Buck, Ozzie Smith, and Red Schoendienst and a biography of Mark McGwire. His most recent book is BASEBALL SAMURAIS: Ichiro Suzuki and the Asian Invasion published by St. Martin's Press in 2001. Rains is a former National League beat writer for USA Today Baseball Weekly. He lives with his wife and two sons in St. Louis.

Mike Eisenbath spent his youth falling in love with baseball seated next to his grandfather and a radio carrying Cardinals’ games, listening to Harry Caray and Jack Buck describe the exploits of stars like Bob Gibson and Lou Brock. An 18-year veteran baseball writer for the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, he has won numerous writing awards and as twice named the Missouri sportswriter of the year. He is the author of THE CARDINALS ENCYCLOPEDIA and MARK MCGWIRE: Power Hitter, a biography published in 2000. He and his wife Donna, a youth minister, live in St. Charles, Missouri, with their four children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Triumph Books (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572434856
• ISBN-13: 978-1572434851
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,747,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where are the 1982 Cardinals now?, December 28, 2009

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Whitey's Boys: A Celebration of the '82 Cards World Championship (Hardcover)

I make no apologies; I am a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan and have been since the 1960s when Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and a bevy of great ballplayers captured three pennants and two World Championships. And let me add that I loved watching and cheering that later edition of Cardinals in the 1980s when Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Darrell Porter, and others won three pennants and a World Championship. Needless to say I am delighted with the success of the Tony LaRussa-led Cards of the current era; I only wish it were 2006 every year. It was for people like me that Rob Rains and Alvin Reid wrote "Whitey's Boys: A Celebration of the '82 Cards World Championship."

"Whitey's Boys" is a loving tribute to that 1982 World Championship team published on the twentieth anniversary of that event. Rob Rains has nearly cornered the market on popular historical works on the Cardinals and in this one he and first time book author Alvin Reid collect stories and craft individual chapters on 17 members of that core team. The greats are present--Ozzie Smith, William McGee, Bruce Sutter, Keith Hernandez, Joaquin Andujar--and a lot of those that were largely role players besides. Each has an individual chapter describing their experiences during the championship season as well as their life after. There is not a little philosophy in these chapters as the individuals profiled reflect on their place in the universe and baseball, which may after all be one and the same.

A "Foreword" by White Herzog, the irascible "White Rat" that ran the Cardinals during one of the team's best eras, lays out his take on the team and what it accomplished.

Overall, don't look for complex sabermetric analysis, sophisticated historical investigation, or gripping narrative in "Whitey's Boys." It is, as the title promises, a celebration of the 1982 Cardinals. That is all that Rains and Reid deliver. I wish it had been more, but this is just enough for now. I await other writers and historians to deliver on that greater possibility.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A LOOK AT THE 1982 CARDINALS, October 2, 2004

By 

COOL JEWEL (MACEDONIA, OHIO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whitey's Boys: A Celebration of the '82 Cards World Championship (Hardcover)

THIS IS A BOOK COVERING THE INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS WHO HELPED WIN THE 1982 WORLD SERIES. IT HAS SOME NICE INTERVIEWS WITH WHITEY AND THE GANG. A MUST FOR ALL CARDINAL FANS.