Ted Williams | Encyclopedia.com (2024)

1918-2002

American baseball player

Baseball player Ted Williams—nicknamed the Splendid Splinter, Thumper, and Teddy Ballgame—has been called one of the two greatest hitters of all time, along with Babe Ruth . Over his nineteen seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Williams had a .344 batting average, even though he lost nearly five seasons in his prime to service as a combat pilot in World War II and the Korean War. Williams, a left-handed batter, was known for his perfect swing and 20/10 eyesight. He would not swing at bad balls and therefore was often walked by pitchers. This talent contributed to his yet-unbroken record of bases on balls, at .482. Williams was also outspoken and hot-tempered and did not cater to fans and sports writers. Yet, he was a staunch supporter of children's charities. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Williams made news of a different kind after his death in July 2002, when his son reportedly shipped Williams's body to Arizona to be cryogenically preserved in order to harvest the great player's DNA.

Young Ball Player

Theodore Samuel Williams was born August 30, 1918, in San Diego, California, the son of Samuel Steward Williams, who ran a passport photography shop, and May Venzer Williams, a woman of some Mexican heritage who worked for the Salvation Army. Young Ted played baseball after school until dark and even took his bat to school to practice. In junior high, the tall, lanky youth played American Legion baseball and played on the Herbert Hoover High School team. He developed a talent for judging good and bad pitches as a teen and did not hesitate to walk if the balls were not worth striking at. He later said, "Getting on base is how you score runs. Runs win ball games."

Williams played his first professional games with the minor league San Diego Padres, in 1936. The following

season the Padres sold him to the Boston Red Sox, where he spent the rest of his career. As a young player, he was extremely co*cky and had a violent temper, often smashing things when he got angry. He was a perfectionist at hitting, and he practiced constantly, even in hotel rooms, where he smashed a bed and a mirror with his powerful swing. A contemporary of the great Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, Williams was batting .400 in 1941, at age 23, his third season in the major leagues. When his manager offered him a chance to sit out a doubleheader on the last day of the season and preserve his batting average, Williams declined. He played the games, getting six hits and finishing with a .406 average, leading the Red Sox to a second-place finish behind the Yankees. DiMaggio was voted the American League's Most Valuable Player (MVP) that year, but Williams won the first of six American League batting championships. He also won the first of his four home run titles.

In 1942, Williams won his first American League Triple Crown, when he finished the season with a .356 batting average, thirty-six home runs, and 137 runs batted in (RBIs). However, the peak of his career would soon be interrupted by war.

Military Service and Continuing Career

At the end of the 1942 season, Williams became a fighter pilot and flight instructor in the U.S. Marine Corps, during World War II. He served through 1945 and returned to the Red Sox in 1946, helping the team win the American League pennant and taking home the MVP award. Although the Red Sox lost the World Series (the only one Williams played in) to the St. Louis Cardinals that year, Williams's reputation as an outstanding hitter grew. He became known as the Splendid Splinter and the Thumper, for his 6'3" rail-thin frame and his power behind the bat.

In 1947, Williams won his second Triple Crown but lost the MVP title to DiMaggio by only one vote, a slight by the sportswriters that Williams never forgot. In 1949, he was voted American League MVP for the second time. In 1950, while having a great season, Williams fractured his elbow during the All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago; he smashed into the wall while catching a fly ball. He finished that game, but the injury cost him more than sixty games, although he played well during the games he did play. He hit .318 in 1951 but then went back into the military service in 1952 and 1953, during the Korean War. After a crash landing of his fighter plane and a bout with pneumonia, he was sent back to the states. He announced his retirement from baseball in 1954 but then changed his mind and stayed on with the Red Sox, because he would have been ineligible for Hall of Fame election on the first ballot if he quit too soon. He suffered a series of injuries in the mid-1950s, but in 1957, at almost forty years old, he hit .388 and became the oldest player to ever win a batting championship. He hit .453 during the second half of the season. Williams was more popular than ever before and finished second only to Mickey Mantle in MVP balloting. The following year, Williams batted .328, still high enough to lead the league in batting. During this part of his career he won the nickname Teddy Ballgame, although his favorite nickname for himself was always "The Kid."

"Terrible Ted"

Williams was known for his indifference, even hostility, toward the press and sometimes the fans, earning him another nickname, Terrible Ted. Constantly chasing the perfect hit, Williams was often gruff and critical. S. L. Price, of Sports Illustrated, once wrote that Williams's speech was a "uniquely cadenced blend of jock, fishing and military lingo, marked by constant profanity." Price also called him "savagely independent." Williams called hitting a baseball "the hardest single feat in sports," and at age nineteen he said his goal was "to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'"

He might have been the greatest hitter, but Williams would not smile for the camera, and he once spat toward the stands after being booed for dropping a fly ball. He was fined by Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey for spitting at the pressbox during a home run, and he once flipped his bat into the stands after a strikeout, hitting a woman on the head. Boston fans booed him, but Hall of Famer Eddie Collins said, "If he'd just tip his cap once, he could be elected mayor of Boston in five minutes."

Chronology

Awards and Accomplishments

At the height of his career, Williams was the highest paid player in the major leagues, earning $125,000 a year. His theory was that if he was being paid so much money "the very least I could do was hit .400." He made every trip to the plate an information-gathering session and said in his autobiography, My Turn at Bat, "I honestly believe I can recall everything there was to know

about my first 300 home runs—who the pitcher was, the count, the pitch itself, where the ball landed." His eyesight was legendary—it was said he could read the label on a spinning record and distinguish between a fastball and a curve ball as the ball approached the plate.

Retirement and Hall of Fame

Williams retired at the end of the 1960 season, at age 42, batting .316 that year and finishing his career with a home run. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, along with famed baseball manager Casey Stengel . Williams showed his refreshing humanity when he read a speech he had written in a motel room the night before. He said being elected to the Hall of Fame was "the greatest thrill of [his] life." He also said, "Ballplayers are not born great…. No one has come upwith a substitute for hard work. I've never met a great player who didn't have to work harder at learning to play ball than anything else he ever did. To me it was the greatest fun I ever had, which probably explains why today I feel both humility and pride, because God let me play the game and learn to be good at it."

Manager and Fisherman

Williams took over as manager of the Washington Senators in 1969 and was named American League Manager of the Year. He stayed with them when they became the Texas Rangers in 1972. He then retired to the Florida Keys and pursued his love of fishing, specializing in tarpon. He served as a sporting goods consultant to Sears department stores, designing fishing equipment.

After suffering three strokes in his seventies that left him partially blind, he remained active in sports, campaigning to get Shoeless Joe Jackson inducted into the Hall of Fame. Williams was cheated out of approximately $2 million by a partner dealing in sports memorabilia during the 1980s; his signature was forged on bats and other souvenirs. Williams's son, John Henry, ferreted out the forgeries and started a business selling authentic Ted Williams memorabilia. In 1994, Williams opened his own baseball museum in Hernando, Florida, adding the Hitters Hall of Fame in 1995, complete with his own annual Greatest Hitters Award. The museum is known as "the Cooperstown of the South."

Figure of Honor

As Williams aged, he became a revered figure in Boston. The city named a tunnel for him, and in 1999 he was saluted at the All-Star Game with a special ceremony in which the star players from both leagues gathered around him on the pitcher's mound at Boston's Fenway Park. Among those honoring him were Cal Ripken, Jr., Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire , and Ken Griffey, Jr.

Suffering from heart problems, Williams received a pacemaker in 2000. He spent many of his last days watching baseball on television, saying, "I'll always be a die-hard Red Sox fan." He died on July 5, 2002, at age 83, of cardiac arrest at Citrus Memorial Hospital in Inverness, Florida.

On the evening of his death, in preparation for the ballgame at Fenway Park, a giant number 9, Williams's jersey number, was mowed into the grass at left field, his longtime position. Thousands of people lined the streets outside the park to mourn the city's favorite son, and the game between the Detroit Tigers and the Red Sox went on, after a solemn playing of taps and singing of the national anthem. An empty red chair marked the spot where Williams once hit a 502-foot home run into the rightfield bleachers, the longest ball ever hit at Fenway Park.

Shortly after Williams's funeral, his son, John Henry, shipped his father's body in ice to a cryogenic laboratory in Arizona, to be preserved. His daughter, Barbara Joyce Williams Ferrell (Williams had three children from two marriages—the third was another daughter, Claudia), claimed that her father had wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over the Florida Keys. The disagreement between the children made headlines, and many scientists and ethicists, as well as fans and players, were shocked at the notion that Williams's body might be used to harvest his DNA.

Ted Williams was indeed one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. His batting record remains a standard by which many players measure achievement. Six players finished their careers with higher batting averages than Williams, but only Babe Ruth was in his class as an all-around hitter. Sports historians have speculated as to the heights Williams might have reached had he not given up five of his best years to serve his country in the military. Yet, he was much more than simply a great athlete. Williams worked for years, often anonymously, for the Jimmy Fund, a children's charity supporting the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He also worked for the Shrine Hospitals and other charities. Williams was an outspoken supporter of minorities in baseball and worked to see that the great Negro leagues players were recognized in the Baseball Hall of Fame and that players of all ethnicities were made welcome in the sport.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY WILLIAMS:

(With John Underwood) The Science of Hitting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971.

(With John Underwood) Ted Williams Fishing the "Big Three": Tarpon, Bonefish, and Atlantic Salmon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.

(With John Underwood) My Turn at Bat: The Story of My Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

(With Jim Prime) Ted Williams'Hit List. Indianapolis, IN: Masters Press, 1996.

Career Statistics

(With David Pietrusza) Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures. Kingston, NY: Total/Sports Illustrated, 2001.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Volume 19. "Ted Williams." Detroit: Gale Group, 1999.

Periodicals

"Bizarre Family Feud." Maclean's (July 22, 2002): 11.

Corliss, Richard. "A Little Respect for the Splendid Splinter: Ted Williams, 1918-2002." Time (July 15, 2002): 72.

"Red Sox Pride: Tributes—and a Family Feud—Follow Ted Williams's Death." People (July 22, 2002): 92.

Stout, Glenn. "The Case of the 1947 MVP Ballot." Sporting News (December 20, 1993): 7.

Thomsen, Ian. "Boston Mourns Its Hero: The Fenway Fans Paid Their Respects to Ted Williams, a Towering Figure Who Fought the Good Fight." Sports Illustrated (July 17, 2002): 70.

Underwood, John. "Gone Fishing: His Baseball Days behind Him, the Kid Took to the Waters off the Keys with a Boatload of Yarns, a Few Friends and One Mission: Bring in the Big Ones." Sports Illustrated (July 17, 2002): 46.

Verducci, Tom. "Splendor at the Plate: Over Two Brilliant Decades, Ted Williams Proved He Was What He Always Wanted to Be: The Best Hitter Who Ever Lived." Sports Illustrated (July 17, 2002): 10.

Williams, Ted. " 'Humility and Pride'." (Speech on induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame). Sports Illustrated (July 17, 2002): 84.

Other

Baseball-Reference.com "Ted Williams." http://www.baseball-reference.com/ (November 26, 2002).

Bergen, Phil, and Mike Shatzkin. "Ted Williams." BaseballLibrary.com. http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary.com/ (November 27, 2002).

Pope, Edwin. "Finally, a Time to Celebrate Baseball as Wing Opens at Ted Williams Museum." Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service (February 9, 1995).

Sketch by Ann H. Shurgin

Rounding Third

In 1941 Williams hit .406 for the Red Sox. In the 55 years since then, few players have come close to hitting .400, and the legend of The Kid's eyesight has only grown: He could follow the seams on a baseball as it rotated toward him at 95 mph. He could read the label on a record as it spun on a turntable. He stood at home plate one day and noticed that the angle to first base was slightly off; measuring proved him right, naturally, by two whole inches. In the '60s [Frank] Brothers—the son of Williams's friend Jack Brothers, a famous Florida Keys fishing guide—would show up on Williams's porch in Islamorada every Saturday morning to spend the day helping Williams pole his skiff through the shallows. Each time, Williams would bet Brothers one hour's poling that he could cast his line and guess, within six inches, how far the lure had flown. "I lost every time," Brothers says. "He'd cast 112 feet and say, 'A hundred eleven feet, 10 inches.' No marks on the line."

Source: Price, S.L. Sports Illustrated, November 25, 1996, p. 92.