It will be 75 years ago next month that Ted Williams arrived in spring training with the Boston Red Sox in Sarasota, Florida. Williams, only 20, came to the big league camp unsure if he belonged, despite a reputation as baseball’s next phenom.
The year was 1939 and the season before Williams had won the American Association’s Triple Crown, hitting .366 with 43 home runs and a 142 runs batted in. But the self-doubting slugger said: “I want to stay right here in Minneapolis with the Millers for another year at least. I’m not ready for the major leagues.”
Ben Bradlee, Jr. quoted Williams with those words in his 2013 biography The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams. The 855-page book is a must-read for not only Williams’ fans but all baseball lovers and even those who relish a biography that is so well researched the CIA might have collaborated.
Williams grew up in San Diego, played 19 seasons with the Red Sox and spent many decades in Florida after baseball but Minnesota was part of his life more than most places. He not only had that one glorious season 76 years ago with the Millers but his first wife, Doris Soule, was from Princeton, Minnesota and he once managed for Bob Short, a Minneapolis businessman who owned the Washington Senators in the 1970s. And during the early years of his baseball career Williams wintered in Minnesota, drawn by his passion to hunt and fish.
This writer’s dad idolized Williams, praising The Kid as baseball’s greatest hitter and a war hero who served in World War II and Korea. “Think about how many home runs he would have hit if he didn’t miss five years serving his country,” Dad said.
Williams, a Marine fighter pilot, finished with 521 home runs but he might have hit more than 700, breaking Babe Ruth’s 714 major league record. Despite missing the war years of 1943, 1944, 1945, and most of the 1952 and 1953 seasons, Williams played through 1960, retiring at age 42 with a lifetime average of .344.
Williams retired with a .482 on-base percentage, baseball’s best ever, and that meant he reached base nearly every other at-bat. His slugging percentage of .634 was second only to Ruth’s .690. His accomplishments included winning two Triple Crowns, six batting titles and 18 All-Star appearances.
Williams wanted to be remembered as the greatest hitter who ever lived. Now more than 11 years after his death, any discussion of who deserves that title has no credibility if Williams isn’t in the final mix.
The Kid was a genius who studied hitting all his life—like Einstein pursued physics or Edison produced inventions. Putting the ball in play with his bat, where no fielder could initially reach it, was what he lived for.
Teddy Ballgame was the show, occasionally at the expense of fielding, base running and the welfare of teammates. An immature Williams sometimes lost focus playing for the Millers. Bradlee wrote that Williams would go to the outfield with his glove in his back pocket, not on his hand.
There was a game when the Millers outfielder was even more out of sorts, probably daydreaming of his next at-bat. Where was his glove? “It was lying on the ground next to him, a useless appendage,” Bradlee wrote.
Bradlee tells of a Williams many of his admirers never knew. The Kid had demons including shame about his maternal Mexican heritage. In early 20th century America, ethnic prejudices ran deep.
Throughout Williams’ life he would almost be known as much for his emotions as his Hall of Fame hitting. He swore at sportswriters, cursed fans and bullied most anyone including his wives and children.
There was however both a bad Ted/good Ted. The Kid was devoted to visiting and helping sick children. He also raised millions of dollars for charity.
Williams tried to keep such deeds quiet but through the years his acts of kindness and fundraising became better known. It all became part of the Williams’ image which certainly didn’t hurt his relationship with Sears, Roebuck, the company that employed him as a high paid sporting goods consultant and spokesman.
Williams was a world class fisherman. Bradlee wrote that Williams’ expertise was so great he provided technical advice for Sears fishing equipment. He loved to pursue bonefish in the Florida Keys during the winter and catch Atlantic salmon in Canada in the summer. He became a spokesman for conservation of Atlantic salmon, frequently giving an earful of advice to Canadian authorities, according to Bradlee.
The great hitter, war hero, outdoor expert and conservationist was a real-life John Wayne. Tall, handsome and outspoken he fit the stereotype definition of a man’s man.
Williams would discuss hitting with most anyone, even sharing information with rival hitters, Bradlee wrote. Williams pulled for others to hit .400, the holy ground that he reached in 1941 with his .406 average. He then approached that sacred level again in 1957 when at 39 he hit .388 even though he couldn’t run with much speed and was a poor bet to earn an infield hit.
When the Minnesota Twins’ Rod Carew flirted with a .400 average in 1977—and even made the cover of Time magazine—Williams was the subject of a feature story in Sports Illustrated, lending support to Carew and explaining why he hoped Carew would hit .400.
Seventy-three years after Williams’ remarkable achievement in 1941, no one still has made it to .400. The magic of that figure and all the other Williams accomplishments were why a nation was captivated when they saw Teddy Ballgame in 1999 riding across the sacred Fenway Park grounds on a golf cart, waving to a vast television audience at the All-Star game in Boston.
Not before or since can I remember my eyes becoming watery watching a tribute to an athlete. But that’s why The Kid was a god.
This year it will be 15 summers since that Fenway Park All-Star game. It will be 14 years since Williams passed away at age 83. The 2014 All-Star game will be in Minneapolis and MLB and the Twins should recognize Williams and the city where he took his last step to the major leagues and eventual immortality.
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