Ted Williams: Gone but not forgotten
July 07, 2002 ~ 8:17 p.m.
It seems that no sooner did the St. Louis Cardinals suffer some devastating losses�the deaths of Jack Buck and Darryl Kile�and I made public my sympathies to Cardinals fans on this very page, when my Red Sox suffered a loss of their own, one that�s about as devastating as they come.
Ted Williams died this past Friday morning.
Williams was a pure hitter, the man who turned hitting into a science, laboring in his notebooks about what each individual pitcher he faced liked to throw. He was, arguably, baseball�s best hitter. He hit .400 in 1941, still the only player in major league history to do so. Williams also captured six batting titles, two Triple Crown awards, belted 521 career home runs and retired in 1960 with a .344 cumulative batting average.
But Williams was also moody, argumentative and temperamentally explosive. His phenomenal career is the result of a stubborn, competitive attitude that would not let up. Williams was such a fierce competitor and an uncontrollable screwball, and in this respect, he could have given Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth a run for their monies. He may have been the one lone household name on the Red Sox lineup for 21 years, but he never cared to acknowledge what his presence on the team meant to the city.
It is a fascinating tale of how Williams and the city of Boston became so affectionately and inexorably linked. He accepted an offer to play for the Red Sox in 1939, but his loyalties to Boston were tenuous at best. In one famous incident, Williams and Joe DiMaggio both pressed for trades�Williams fancied himself playing in Yankee Stadium, which he felt would better suit his left-handed swing, and DiMaggio, a righty, liked the idea of aiming for the Green Monster left-field wall. Luckily, nothing came of this idea, but the fact that Williams seriously considered bolting for New York, much like Babe Ruth before him, makes the die-hard Sox fan shudder (although it must be said, Joe DiMaggio was no slacker and would have suited the Red Sox nicely).
Williams would also regularly spit at hecklers, refused to tip his cap when fans cheered him, and fought constantly with the Boston media. Sports writers would regularly trash Williams, and Williams gave as good as he got, spewing foul-mouthed abuse at members of the press. By 1947, Williams was so reviled among writers in the media, that one writer refused to nominate him on the ballot for the Most Valuable Player award. That one vote ended up costing Williams the MVP title for that year.
No, Teddy was surely not the easiest guy to like and, indeed, baseball fans�even many Sox fans themselves�loved to hate him. He was wild and insisted on doing things his way or not at all, drove managers around the bend and exhibited behavior toward some of his own teammates that bordered on bullying.
But his hitting, as aforementioned, made the Red Sox worth watching during what were some awful years (Boston won only one pennant during William�s career, in 1946). In 1941, possessing a .400 batting average with two games left in the season, William�s manager begged him to sit the two final games out, rather than risk dipping below this historic mark. Williams refused, and ended up going 6-for-8, protecting his .400 batting average.
Now, surely a man this competitive had more to show for his fighting spirit than impressive baseball statistics, right? Right. Ted Williams enlisted during World War II and did not play for the Sox during the 1943, �44 or �45 seasons. He remained a Marine Reservist and also spent the 1952 season conspicuously absent from the Boston lineup. The former Senator John Glenn remembers Williams as his fearless wingman during the Korean conflict. During one incident, Williams� plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he had to crash-land his burning plane. The same tenacity that suited Williams in the batter�s box also saved his life and saw him through during his service in the Marines. �There was no one more dedicated to this country and more proud to serve his country than Ted Williams,� Glenn said on Friday. �He never complained about that [getting drafted for Korea]. But if he had stayed in baseball, he would have broken even more records than he did.�
Williams hung up his bat for the final time at the end of the 1960 season. He had hit a home run in his last at-bat, during his final game as a player and as the greatest hitter that the Red Sox�that baseball�had ever witnessed. But he remained a positive spirit that cloaked the Red Sox. Carl Yaztremski, who inherited Teddy�s left-field position, helped the Sox win titles in 1967 and 1975. But even Yaz, a Hall of Famer and distinguished Red Sock himself who gave Boston 22 years of gritty play, felt awed. �Nobody could replace him, I just followed him,� said Yaztremski.
During the late �80s, Williams did bread commercials on the radio with the Red Sox game announcers, the content of which involved light-hearted banter. I remember those commercials well. And in 1991, when the Red Sox honored the 50th anniversary of his record-setting 1941 season, team officials decided against giving Teddy a cap to take off for the fans, fearing that Williams would take umbrage to the suggestion. Reliever Jeff Reardon remembers Teddy approaching him and taking off his cap. Reardon was about to protest when Williams snapped, �I know it�s your lucky hat, I�ll give it back to you, damn it!� Williams walked into the outfield, took off the cap and waved at the fans. All the indifference that Williams had shown for the fans of Boston during his career was now forever forgiven and forgotten.
At the 1999 All-Star Game in Boston, it was another emotional homecoming for Teddy. He was surrounded by the likes of Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire and other All Stars, all of whom acted as if shaking hands with Williams was like touching Christ. Nomar Garciaparra, the Red Sox� current All-Star shortstop, was told in no uncertain terms by Williams that he (Garciapparra) was to Boston what he himself had been during his days as a player. Garciaparra beamed with pride when Williams referred to him �as my kid.�
You cannot go to Fenway Park without seeing reminders of the man. His retired #9 hangs from the right-field banner, along with only four others (and the Red Sox are a team that have been around since 1901). The street behind the Green Monster is known as Ted Williams Way. In the right-field bleachers, a seat painted red marks the spot of a 1946 homer of his that traveled an estimated 502 feet. This was long before the advent of moon-shot sluggers like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds; a 500-foot bomb in �46 left the fans and players alike at Fenway that day understandably gob-smacked.
But perhaps the biggest dedication the city of Boston paid Teddy is not to be found at Fenway Park. It is to be found between the Seaport district and Logan Airport. It is the Massachusetts Turnpike extension that traverses one mile of harbor waters. I refer to none other than Ted Williams Tunnel. When the tunnel opened in 1995 bearing his name, Teddy was not amused. �Every place I go, they're waving at me, sending out a cheer, sending letters and notes,� he noted unhappily. �And I thought, I've only seen it happen to somebody who looks like they're going to die. ... I'm a long ways from that.�
Williams finally succumbed to heart disease, dying from cardiac arrest last Friday in a Florida hospital. He was 83.
But I will not shed any tears for Teddy. He is no doubt in heaven, kicking about and his favorite activity is probably looking God in the eye and sneering, �So you think you know what�s best, do you?� I�m sure Teddy is no less in the afterlife what he was during his cocky, annoyingly self-confident lifetime.
But he was just the sort of kick in the ass that the Red Sox needed during some terrible years. And Boston fans, demanding and cynical, found their match the day Williams came to town.
He once told some minor-league teammates in 1937, �I tell you, I�m gonna make more money in baseball than the three of you put together.�
Teddy, you did more than that, you cranky sonuvabitch. And that�s why, whether you like it or not, we Bostonians adore you. Rest in peace.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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