Bill White, Away From the Rat Race, Is Writing Bluntly About It

Bill White and Stan Musial, right, with Cardinals Manager Johnny Keane in 1964.

By RICHARD SANDOMIR
NYT

At the sight of Bill White, you are tempted to blurt out “Hey White!” as Phil Rizzuto, his broadcast partner with the Yankees, might have at seeing his old friend emerge from a thick, self-created cocoon. He is 77, powerful looking and back in the limelight after a long hiatus with an autobiography whose very title calls attention to itself: “Uppity.”

He turned intensely private 17 years ago after careers as a first baseman for the Giants, the Cardinals and the Phillies; a Yankees broadcaster; and the National League president, where his wariness of the news media made him increasingly inaccessible.

He travels in his motor home, fishes for halibut in Alaska (“I’m a member of the 100-pound halibut club on Kodiak Island”) and plays golf (“badly”).

“I’ve done what I wanted to do,” he said in an interview. “Got away from the rat race.” He chuckles at the notion that some people might think he’s dead.

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