Book Review- "St. Louis Cardinals: Past and Present"

A month or so ago, I received in the mail a copy of Doug Feldmann's Cardinals-Past-Present/dp/0760335281/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243219747&sr=1-1">St. Louis Cardinals, Past and Present.  It came at a pretty busy time for me, so while I immediately sat down and started poring over the book, I wasn't able to get around to publishing a review of it until now.

I'm also breaking from my normal tradition of keeping posts unillustrated. This picture of my kids and I points out one of the strongest points of this book--the ability to educate the coming generation about the great history of the Cardinals.

Feldmann, who sat down with us on the UCB Radio Hour a month back, has put together a great historical reference book, filled with photographs of the great Cardinals of the past and present (hence the name--shocking, huh?).  

From the turn of the last century all the way through 2008, Feldmann does a wonderful job of hitting the high points and finding pictures of those players, managers, and owners that he's talking about.

This is not a book for those looking for details and elaborate discussions of the past. It's 140 pages and chock full of pictures, so the writing is limited. What writing there is in it, though, is done very well.  

You move seamlessly from, for example, Branch Rickey to Bing Devine to Whitey Herzog to Walt Jocketty to John Mozeliak. The book is presented in sections, so you can trace the line of Cardinal first basemen, or shortstops, or starting pitchers.

Other sections include The World Series, The Rivalries, Down on the Farm, and The Great Teams and the Dynasties.  If you can think of the angle, Feldmann seems to have covered it in this book.

For older Cardinal fans, this is a great way to bring back memories of watching the Cardinals. It was great to see the old Busch in its pre-1996 configuration again. To see pictures of Jack Clark and Tommy Herr. To revisit the controversy of 1985.

As I noted before, though, it also works great as an introduction to Cardinal history for the younger set. My four-and-a-half year old loves looking through the pictures. When I can show him some of the players that he's learning about in his other Cardinal book, it only reinforces things and helps him at least start learning names of the past.

Later on, he'll be that much further along to being an educated Cardinal fan. (My two year old just likes pointing at all the Cardinals and saying, "Albert Pujols".)

There's not much downside to this book. Obviously, it wouldn't have been a terrible thing if it were longer, but you'll never find a Cardinal book that's long enough for me. Since it was designed as an overview, you don't get a lot of depth in any one topic.

On the whole though, I'd definitely recommend this book for young and old alike.