Speaker 1 That’s Ted Williams, the impact,
Speaker 2 but,
Speaker 1 oh, is he a master that and he had ideas that nobody else could even imagine,
Speaker 2 you know, but the secret
Speaker 3 to just oh, OK, we were on your beat. Humans. Yeah. Why don’t you just let it go? I want to bring in Mike in just a little bit more talk to you. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I like it up a little off.
Speaker 2 That’s what you got here. Yeah. All right,
Speaker 3 John, take one. Subsect. So what were you seeing, what was your first book?
Speaker 1 First book was his life story. And it’s still, after all these years, which reflects well on what Ted Williams represented and the impact he made. He hadn’t done his life story,
Speaker 2 though
Speaker 1 a number of people had tried to get him, but he and I had gone on a fishing trip for a story I did for Sports Illustrated. And I think he we enjoyed each other’s company. Next thing I know, the managing editor at ASI is talking about, well, you got him to fish with you. How about getting his life story? And I called Ted thinking, I’m not going to do that all these years. Sure enough, he said, come on, Dad, we’ll start. And in the next year plus, we stretched out everything we could talk
Speaker 2 about
Speaker 1 the hunting trips, the fishing trips. And from that came my turn about his life story.
Speaker 3 And so we should jump back a little bit. But just so you know, I’m going to ask you the same kinds of questions. Sure. And again, it just four options in the editing room.
Speaker 1 If I gave you too much of an answer, just tell me to slow down.
Speaker 3 Well, I’m just interested that before we get you know, I just want to hear what you said about the science of hitting before. Can you tell me about the science of hitting and that that is still in print?
Speaker 1 Ted wanted to do the science of hitting. When we talked about doing the book, he said, I want the first chapter, the fourth chapter, whatever, and it was a four part series inside. Then the last part was the science of hitting, which is what he wanted to call it, because he said so much had been said and written.
Speaker 2 That was wrong.
Speaker 1 And I like to correct it. And he did. And the book all these years is still in print.
Speaker 3 And what about that chart? Can you tell me about the chart on the cover? Was that his idea
Speaker 1 made the chart on the cover and where the balls were that you shouldn’t hit because you would only about one 50 instead of three to 30 like he did? It was his idea. You want to different colours for the different zones. So not only did we use it, but it’s on the cover
Speaker 3 and that a lot of ballplayers today grew up reading that book, studying that chart, thinking about that chart. What do you think that says about that?
Speaker 1 I think the one thing that Ted wanted most of all to communicate was the size of hitting because he said so much has been written about it. So much has been wrong. For example, it’s not a downswing. It’s an upswing slightly up. The ball is coming down. You ought to be swinging slightly up. And of course, everything that he wrote stood up still tall and is now in service on the part of the players that play the game. I still get compliments from ballplayers are
Speaker 2 thankful
Speaker 1 to Ted Williams.
Speaker 3 Great. So the you know what what our film is trying to do is really introduce him to a whole generation that maybe didn’t know him and, you know, maybe he sees it through 40 for a lifetime. But who who was he as a as a man? And you spent so much time with him. So that’s going to be kind of what we talked about today. Can you can you tell me, did you know someone who didn’t know Ted Williams? What would you say to them about who he was?
Speaker 2 Well, that’s
Speaker 1 probably more than I can say in a simple
Speaker 2 paragraph,
Speaker 1 because he represented so many things. You know, he he came from abject poverty. His mother walked the streets of San Diego for the Salvation Army. His father was a heavy drinker, gone most of the time. But he lived in that environment and learned and got excited about baseball at a very early age. And his brother used to while away the time at night talking about healing. The next day he started playing when he was just a kid. He would roll a bat underneath a desk when he was
Speaker 2 a colleague,
Speaker 1 not even a teenager, 12,
Speaker 2 11, whatever,
Speaker 1 and he had a bat underneath the desk that he would roll waiting for the bell to ring so he could grab it and go out and hit the.
Speaker 3 He you’ve got to know him later in life. What was he like to be with with the gorillas and.
Speaker 2 Well, I had
Speaker 1 to say the least. I had misgivings about Ted. I wasn’t a fan. I was a Tiger fan, which, of course, made no sense if you were around Ted Williams. But he represented so much more than just a baseball player. And he he wasn’t trying to do that, but he did. He was the greatest hitter who ever lived, probably. But he also had affections and appreciation, like, for example, his time in the Marine Corps. I’ll never forget my son Josh, who’s now a captain in the Army, by the way, Josh and Ted, even though Josh was just a kid, we were up to see Ted in Inverness when he was really living out his days. And as we came into the room that he is going to show us his trophies and his blacks,
Speaker 2 a whole room full of.
Speaker 1 And Josh, step back because the rug was so thick and look so beautiful. And I looked down and I said,
Speaker 2 Ted
Speaker 1 and Josh interrupted, said, isn’t that the Marine insignia? And Ted smiled and said, Yeah, kid, best team I ever played for. But that was another example of the kind of complete man that he was. Yes, he had a lot of flaws and he recognized those flaws and lived through them. But but deep down inside, he was quite a good American.
Speaker 3 Great, great. When you got to know him, was there anything that surprised you about him or learning about his life?
Speaker 1 Well, my very first experience, I had heard about his bat throwing and gesturing to the fans and the press box, his enemy and the enemy’s in the press box. I was still a very young I was still in college young writer for the old Miami News, and they asked me to cover
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 Horseshoe Miami Herald, excuse me, on Key Biscayne. I mean, I started this
Speaker 2 course, it
Speaker 1 was started when I really wasn’t at Ted Williams fan at all, and in fact, he was the one that that did the most damage by Detroit Tigers. Anyway, I heard all the stories about him throwing bats and gesturing to the fans and most importantly, to him, gesturing at the press box. And there was a horse show
Speaker 2 on in Coconut Grove
Speaker 1 and I was asked to cover it. I was a kid writer for the Herald and I was there. And the the woman in charge said, How would you like to meet Ted Williams? I said, Ted Williams, is it? Yeah. Sitting over in that box by himself. I said, I don’t think she says, come on, you like that? And I’m thinking to myself, no, I’m not. We got to the box. And Ted stood up and shook my hand and said, Sit down
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 virtually made me sit down. And I was with him for over an hour and I thought coming out,
Speaker 2 not a bad guy after all.
Speaker 1 And it was the beginning, as it turned out, of a long relationship, because when Sports Illustrated asked me to fish with him, I called and he said, that’s a great idea. And I came down and we fish for tapin in the waters off Miami. And it began for a long, long time to that.
Speaker 3 What was he like to fish with? Was he demanding or
Speaker 2 Ted,
Speaker 1 first of all, in anything that he was expert at or close to
Speaker 2 it?
Speaker 1 He was always and reluctant to give you advice. So fishing with him was it wasn’t a chore. In fact, I loved it. We just all over the place. We had it all over the place. But the fishing part, I was surprised that that he not only took me under his wing, but we had a terrific time fishing. We fish for three days for tapin. And he complained all the time about my lack
Speaker 2 of of
Speaker 1 expertise. But then he then he corrected me and he was like I was like sitting in a boat with an expert and getting taught. It’s quite an experience.
Speaker 3 His teammates on the Red Sox seemed to really like him, too.
Speaker 1 The thing about Ted, yes, he was demanding when it came to listening to his expertise, listening to hitting a ball
Speaker 2 and how to do it.
Speaker 1 So he wasn’t the least bit reluctant to help out. Because I give you a good example. When he became the manager of the Washington senators job, he said he’d never take, but he
Speaker 2 did
Speaker 1 his his team I don’t know where they finished, but he wound up doing so well that they they
Speaker 2 gave him the
Speaker 1 American League Manager of the
Speaker 2 Year award,
Speaker 1 every single player on that team that that had a starting role
Speaker 2 improved
Speaker 1 their batting averages under Ted Williams. His expertise was unflagging on and in any way unadulterated when it came out of his mouth and to it to the benefit of those senators, to their bodies, into their minds.
Speaker 3 Oh, hang on one second.
Speaker 1 I hate this making sense. Yeah.
Speaker 3 Oh, it’s all solid. Yes, great. Can I just wanted to see, you know, he’s had it back. Just got it right. So let’s let’s go into his childhood. Can you tell me more about about his mother?
Speaker 2 His mother,
Speaker 1 sort of, ironically, was probably one of the greatest influences. He dreaded the nights on the streets of San Diego walking with the Salvation Army because he just fell ill at ease and and
Speaker 2 not not
Speaker 1 fitting in. His mother, though, insisted and he tried to always stand in the back when they were singing. And she, of course, was out at night when she probably when he wasn’t whether it was which he wasn’t doing it, that after she wasn’t at home with him, his father was a ne’er do well. He wasn’t at home. He and his brother pretty much did it alone. And that had to be and he talked about it willingly and openly, but it had to be a negative influence. The thing about his brother was that that he could talk to him and they would they would sit on the sidewalk outside of their house and talk at night. And Ted basically pronouncing his desires and telling his younger brother things about hitting a baseball. He was already studying it way back then,
Speaker 3 was he didn’t carry that with him. Like, was he hurt about the way his mother and father treated and more?
Speaker 1 I think with his mother, the love was definitely there. And when you when you hear little stories about like when he signed his first contract for three thousand dollars, he had his mother stand by. And she basically gave him some instruction beforehand. But evidently she was a very sweet lady, but she just wasn’t around enough. When he finally went to the World Series, the first person he lined up to come to the games and got her got her flights and everything else was his mom.
Speaker 3 So his mother did see him. His mother came to the forty six world tour. Yeah. Oh, I didn’t realize that. John Thorn told us that they neither of his parents ever saw him play.
Speaker 2 Well, you know what?
Speaker 1 My recollection was that she was along with less Chassy is his coach on the on the playing fields of San Diego. Nobody check that out for you.
Speaker 3 We’ll check into it. Yeah, OK. We should definitely check it out.
Speaker 1 I just remember him him sending tickets to those two, I thought. But it’s been a long time ago, yeah,
Speaker 3 and so he he decided very early on that he was going to be, you know, the greatest hitter who ever lived and he was going to devote himself to that. What what was it about hitting that you think that he liked so much?
Speaker 2 I think it was a
Speaker 1 total expression
Speaker 2 when
Speaker 1 you when you swung and hit a baseball, you’re releasing all that energy and all that pent up emotion. And he could be you could suggest that to his conversation about it. And I think he just flat out loved it. It was everything to him. And he couldn’t wait to be on the diamond that day or the next day and the day after that.
Speaker 3 That was beautiful. That was really the release of emotion, I mean, no one else has put it that way. That’s great.
Speaker 1 Well, I think he had so much inside of him that needed to be expressed in his expression was hitting a baseball,
Speaker 3 you know, did. So this is for the American Masters Series. And they’ve never done a baseball player. They’ve only done one other athlete. It’s usually artists and scientists, you know. And I mean, do you think of Ted that way as an artist or a scientist or both or.
Speaker 1 Well, my wife, who is an artist and I when we’ve had Ted for dinner or whatever, she’d been homecoming queen at the University of Florida and forever he called her the queen is the eye of the
Speaker 2 queen and he called. But I think that that
Speaker 1 in those moments he was always reflective in that way and could tell you, even with his innermost thoughts, what he felt.
Speaker 3 So that does sort of make him an artist, do you think?
Speaker 1 Oh, I’m sorry,
Speaker 2 I
Speaker 1 get waylaid there. And and my wife, the artist, when he would talk about hitting a baseball, she says that’s Ted’s art. And it’s true is exactly what he was. He think about the fact that he wanted those those balls in the in the strike zone on the cover of the book that we did, hitting a baseball sized building. That was his idea. It was are the artistic side of Ted Williams, because you think about everything he did is
Speaker 2 his
Speaker 1 stroke at casting a line to a rolling tapin or to whatever that he was after he could put 90 feet out
Speaker 2 a
Speaker 1 lure to an Atlantic salmon right on the nose, a rolling salmon. I saw him do it. I don’t know how many times. And it always amazed me because I’m going maybe 50 feet out. He’s going
Speaker 2 90.
Speaker 3 So that kind of drive, as you were saying before. But but we don’t want to refer to the fact that you said before, but that kind of drive leads to a lot of complications and a personal life, doesn’t it?
Speaker 2 Well, he
Speaker 1 had a lot of self. Determination for sure, but also self-criticism about the way how late he was when he reflected on the mistakes he made. He acknowledged that there were mistakes, but that didn’t make him necessarily change. I mean, this is a problem with marriage. Married three times, divorced three times. But he stayed with it because he, I say, stayed with it. Actually, his last relationship with Louise Kaufman, there was no marriage there, but she is feeling a lot better than anybody else. And and she was with him when he died the bed.
Speaker 3 So he he understood that he I think, as you put it, you know, he struck out as a father and husband.
Speaker 1 I think that
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 only thing that that bothered him was that he really never stayed close enough to be that effective influence that he wanted to be. But even though with his with his son is his last attempt at
Speaker 2 fatherhood
Speaker 1 did some strange things towards the end. The thing about about Ted was he was grateful and he and he said he said but he’s been the one that stayed with me
Speaker 2 here
Speaker 1 despite those misgivings.
Speaker 3 What about his temper?
Speaker 1 First of all, one of the things that we wrote about, in my opinion, and
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 was the time when he was still in the minor leagues and he struck out, it went back to the Bansi was so mad because it had a bad day. There was a water cooler there and he turned
Speaker 2 and crushed it
Speaker 1 with his fist. It almost ruined his not only his career, but basically his life. It was really he was really damaged heavily that that was that was part of the Ted Williams that you would see it when he threw his bat, when he when he got angry at sportswriters, etc, etc., and he had that kind of temper. I mean, he’s been known to the break a fishing rod and have every missed on a on an attempt at doing whatever. Yes, he is. Tepper was was tempered by the fact that he understood that he was flawed in that way.
Speaker 3 I mean, how bad is that vacuum? Part of the Ted Williams was the line second. Secondly, just
Speaker 1 tell him you don’t really talk about that episode at the park. Yes.
Speaker 3 All I want to say. Let me just tell him team here, OK?
Speaker 1 What, you’re really covering all the ground.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I’ll
Speaker 1 be a good show
Speaker 3 from what? Dick Flavin. A little. These are light. You know, Dick Flavin, I don’t know. I guess the Boston Red Sox sort of poet laureate. OK, yeah, he’s great. We had a fun interview with him, but he’s sort of a light hitting shortstop hitting. Aw, yeah. All right. That’s going to take two. All right, so, Joe, what was the phrase that was stepped on that was that if you could just give us a name for sort of editing purposes, you were talking about the various Ted Williams and you said something like that was the Ted Williams who had a temper. If you could just give us that sentence and then we can move on.
Speaker 1 Well, I experienced that. I had not seen it because we’d gotten along from the very start. But we were starting the life story first as it became the book for Simon and Schuster. And I was down in Florida with him. He was still with the Red Sox as a. Hitting coach, not a full time, he wasn’t to go into the games at all, but they all wanted him there for spring
Speaker 2 training and
Speaker 3 he was still with the Red Sox and he was
Speaker 1 still on the Red Sox as the hitting coach. And he wasn’t on a daily basis. This was just they wanted at least for this Bragi. He was going to fish in that during the season. And we were at the park. And it’s it’s something that happened. He wasn’t in a good mood. And I noticed that when we went to dinner that
Speaker 2 night and
Speaker 1 he was gruff, he gave me one word sentences,
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 you could see that something was wrong. Well, when the check came, I reach for it and he grabbed it out of my hand and he said, don’t be a big shot. And he stood up and he walked away. And I sat there thinking,
Speaker 2 wait a minute,
Speaker 1 I can’t I can’t deal with this. I can’t live with this as as a writer. I’ve got to have the kind of Ted Williams that will be communicative at all times. Anyway, I sat there fuming for I don’t know how long. And then I went went back. I didn’t see him at night and went to the park the next day. And when he was apart from the other players, I walked over to him and told him basically I’d be walking away if he ever did that again. And he just looked at me and I turned around and I was literally packing to go
Speaker 2 home
Speaker 1 when he knocked on that, where there was a knock on the door. And sure enough, there’s Ted Williams and he didn’t say anything except it’s five thirty. Let’s go eat. That was his way of saying, I’m sorry. You didn’t say I’m sorry, but I want to tell you, he never did that again as long as we were friends, whatever, associates, compatriots.
Speaker 3 Never a number of people have talked about his cursing and then his cursing was actually kind of amusing.
Speaker 1 Well, think about his cursing. It was it was almost artistic. I mean, he had ways of using words. I mean, I’ll give you one that came in many, many times. But he had it in so many different forms. A. Nampara syphilitic was the word. I don’t know where he kept that as a as a expletive, but that was that way. I’m sick of Egert curse better than anybody, but I got to tell you that in the company of those that he deserved to be just understood better and deserved some respect. He showed it. He didn’t do
Speaker 2 it.
Speaker 3 Did he do it with waiters. I mean, who do you do.
Speaker 2 Oh he did
Speaker 1 it with I think he did it with people that not not people that that were serving him or doing something positive around him or whatever, that he didn’t really know he did it when he felt comfortable in the relationship. Certainly thought that way on a ball field. But I got to tell you, also in casual conversation, you would use words that would certainly be considered.
Speaker 3 Great. The what about his relationships with his wives, with his women, with women? What was that like?
Speaker 1 Well, I didn’t get to know the really I met the didn’t get to know two of the three. But the last I did the last wedding, it was a beauty and and couldn’t have been more understanding of what Ted Williams was all about. But there were just a seemed like almost a constant edge to any kind of relationship like that. He talked about his problems, quote unquote, with women that went way back because he really I don’t think he really understood women that well. But when you saw him around, like, for example, my wife, Donna, who who got along fine with that, he was respectful. He was honest. He didn’t let up entirely on his cursing because now she’s virtually family, because he was my is centric uncle and she is my dearly beloved wife. But he could be as generous and as kindly as any man and for that matter, as attractive in this conversation and as ways
Speaker 2 he was
Speaker 1 good at it.
Speaker 3 What do you mean good at what?
Speaker 2 He was
Speaker 1 good at at at judging this just the situation he was in
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 adapting to it, adapting to it. And that included when he was with women. He, he, I think he understood he he yes. He could be pretty crude, but for the most part you had to remember how smart Ted Williams was,
Speaker 2 a
Speaker 1 very smart man. I’ll never forget early in our relationship, he was bragging to me about just having bought a new set of world book encyclopedias. And you know what he said? He said, I’m going to be on those books all the time. And I think he was he was always strongest is a, quote, genius, unquote. Add to
Speaker 3 this. Great, great. Did he you know, there’s this idea that that he was such a great we all know he was such a great hitter, but I think some people thought, wow, he’s a great natural hitter. Did he what did he feel about that when people said, oh, he’s such a natural hitter?
Speaker 1 I think that that Ted personified an athlete who studies and advanced the things that he has to do on the day that he’s going to do them
Speaker 2 and he
Speaker 1 reacts accordingly or acts accordingly. When we did the science of hitting, he brought out things about that science that I never even heard before, never even heard that at then that matters have to be alert to and reacting to things that that are happening at the batter’s box sitting on the bench. That’s the one thing that he got the senators alert to, is that he wouldn’t have players sitting on the bench picking their nose and scratching their elbows. He’d have them looking at especially hitters watching a pitcher, he said, because that’s where you learn he was that way as a kid. He was always learning and could and could reflect on it later on.
Speaker 3 Do you remember any specifics, other specifics about do you want some water?
Speaker 1 Yeah, I would like some
Speaker 3 water right there. Thank you. Just wondering, are there specifics you mentioned before, you know, swing upswing than that? Are there anything, any any other sort of batting things that you remember?
Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I’d have to stand up, show you. But he talked about hip beforehand. You know, it’s a good thing he compared a little bit to the golf swing because the golf swing is the same way, except you’re hitting down and through. But no, he he could tell you and he did in the science of hitting, he could tell you where your elbows should be, where your nose should be pointing, et cetera, et cetera. He had studied it from a kid who had studied it.
Speaker 3 So you mentioned from a kid we studied it just reminds me he had all these nicknames, The Kid, the Thumper, Teddy Ballgame, The Splendid Splinter. Was there any nicknames that you felt he cared most about? Are there any that he, like, personified him?
Speaker 1 Yeah, that’s a good question. But I don’t recall him ever saying I know. It didn’t bother him that he was a kid because he would say it in his own ways, he would say and the kid said this discussing himself, but I don’t think there was anything in particular that he would embrace.
Speaker 3 You mentioned. Well, let’s get to what you mentioned in the break, which is your feelings for him. Can you talk again about your feelings for which part? Well, you were just saying in the break, you said, oh, remind me that I should ask you again. OK, hold on one second. Huh? The return of the prodigal son.
Speaker 1 I thought. I thought I talked about that.
Speaker 2 You did. You did.
Speaker 3 I’m just one of the things that I was going to and let’s just pause will back up for you to do another slate, I think. Yeah, sure. John, this is Isaac.
Speaker 1 Are you good to see you? I say yeah. OK, John,
Speaker 3 take three marker. So what do you want to say, what you were going to say, or should I ask you a question? Because I had another question. OK, go ahead. OK, well, so do you feel like he was the kid you mentioned before? He was a great man. You know, was he was he a man? Was he a kid? How does that work?
Speaker 1 Well, I think it was ultimately a terrific man. You might you might be around him enough to also see the kid part because it was clear that in him. But I think he understood he was. Listen, the thing about Ted Williams is that people don’t quite get is how smart he was, Ted. Yes, he could be profane. He could spice a sentence with five curse words, et cetera, et cetera, better than anybody I’ve ever been around in any locker room or or barracks. But by the same token, he was extremely smart and he could tell you things about the size of hitting, for example. But he could remember the details and he could tell you how a jet engine work
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 why a ball could be curved, thrown from the mound to the batter’s box or dropped or
Speaker 2 fluttered in.
Speaker 1 He knew scientifically.
Speaker 2 He knew how
Speaker 1 those things worked and he could tell you and often did.
Speaker 3 So what about your own feelings for him?
Speaker 1 I probably has that, like I said, as a favorite but as centric uncle. I loved the man and I think my whole family did when they were around, even though I’ll never forget when Don and I were driving home from a trip
Speaker 2 and he
Speaker 1 was living out his days in Hernando
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 with Louise Kaufman
Speaker 2 and his son,
Speaker 1 I didn’t know he was sick, but we were fairly close by heading south. And I called to say hello and maybe even drop by, but I was running out of time. Long story. And a nurse answered the phone. She said that the TED was not seeing anybody or talking,
Speaker 2 but
Speaker 1 she invited me to take it back at that part. I think back the nurse that was taking care of him said he’s in a bad way. And she said, and you can come, though he might not be able to see you. And I said, well, can I talk to him? And he got on the phone and he said in a voice that came down the lots of hallway from far off, it sounded so unlike Dad with his stern and strong, vernacular ridden voice. He said, If I had to live the last year of my
Speaker 2 life
Speaker 1 in order to get the the first fifty or whatever,
Speaker 2 he said,
Speaker 1 if I had the choice, I wouldn’t do it. That’s how bad it was.
Speaker 2 And when I
Speaker 1 when he hung up,
Speaker 2 I
Speaker 1 told him, I don’t think I want to see him in this condition.
Speaker 2 And we wrote on own.
Speaker 1 But I regret it to this day because I would like to say goodbye. We didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye.
Speaker 3 I’m sorry. So he just can you just tell me again what he said to you? If I had to live my life just the if I had one year versus if I had to just wait till next year,
Speaker 1 then we went
Speaker 2 anytime, OK?
Speaker 1 He said. If I had to
Speaker 2 live my life to to
Speaker 1 start again. I’m trying to paraphrase, if I had to live the last year of my
Speaker 2 life
Speaker 1 in order to have the first all the years of happiness, he said I wouldn’t do it. He didn’t want to. He did want to trade the pain he’d gone
Speaker 2 through for any of it.
Speaker 1 He was that hurting bad off. It was very sad. And when he hung up, I knew that was the end. That was going to be
Speaker 2 a good goodbye. It did anyway. It’s.
Speaker 3 Thank you, Karen.
Speaker 1 So is that clear, though, the whole idea was that he he if if he was told he had to live that last
Speaker 2 part of his life in order to
Speaker 1 have the first 90 percent,
Speaker 2 he wouldn’t do it
Speaker 3 was much pain. Yeah.
Speaker 1 Yeah. That’s good. That makes sense.
Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, we got it from
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 3 when he first came up to the Red Sox, that’s when the nickname the kid was put on him. And that’s when you what you see him, you know, and they clips and stuff is just such joy in the playing. Can you can you talk about that
Speaker 2 about his
Speaker 3 his first year with the Red Sox?
Speaker 1 Well, there’s no doubt that this was the ultimate for him being in the big leagues. He’d thought about it, I’m sure, childhood. And he loved it for what? The application of that great skill,
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 unmatched ability to hit a baseball. And he lived that through every single day that he played. Hitting a ball was his joy. And he did it with the joy, even if it was sometimes expressed with his round that he did it with the joy that that suggest in every way accomplishment.
Speaker 3 So what do you think happened there in Boston in terms of his relationship with the with the fans and the sportswriters that that drained that joy from the from the sort of the public persona?
Speaker 1 I think deep down, probably the most trouble he had
Speaker 2 was accepting
Speaker 1 even casual criticism. And, of course, sportswriters in the press box, especially in a town like Boston where they get so much involved, they were they were critical of him and he became almost the antithesis of a good sport to them. He would sometimes curse them in the locker room if they asked the wrong question. He was he was not easy to talk to except for those. He felt like he could he could be more understanding. But he didn’t like criticism in any form. And when the fans booed, he reacted accordingly. When the writers wrote what he thought. And a lot of times it was because he thought that they were wrong and he was right. And that way he felt justified. But too many times, you know, it was on the edge of just being a bad system, if you will.
Speaker 3 Great, the. Is there anything about jumping around a little bit in chronology, but the 1941, the final day of the season when he’s hitting 399 five and Cronin says, well, you want to sit out and we didn’t even think about it. Is there anything about that day that we don’t know that that hasn’t been told?
Speaker 1 I to. It is clear in my mind that the whole business with Cronan
Speaker 2 was the thing that
Speaker 1 that personified Ted Williams, you did not want to go out being thought of as someone that that ducked an issue that turned away from a challenge. It was a challenge to Ted Williams was great on going after a challenge in this case. Yes, he could have gone one for four and and lost his 400. But he did it.
Speaker 3 He forgot what he meant. It was actually it was a double header.
Speaker 1 Double what it was. Yeah.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 A double header and a and he winds up batting for six instead of three. Ninety nine.
Speaker 3 He was somebody who never shirked from a challenge.
Speaker 1 I don’t think
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 anything that he really cared about, that he would duck away or did duck away, certainly he felt that way about his time and and the Marine Air Corps flying jets in combat. And he was that way for sure about hitting a baseball.
Speaker 3 Did he? Did he feel how do you think he felt about all the years he lost to the wars?
Speaker 1 I think about that was he talked about it like he didn’t have any regrets because he was doing something that mattered. His time in the Marines really meant that Marine Corps, Air Corps really meant that much to him. In other words, yes, he knew that that’s that’s five years out of his career,
Speaker 2 he’d hit eight
Speaker 1 hundred home runs. Who knows what his final batting average would be? Because he he lost those years when he was at his very best in the prime of his career. And there’s just no doubt that it would have made another big difference in his life. But no, he didn’t ever talk about it like he had. Yes. Or regrets on the surface. But deep down inside, what he thought he was doing was equally or more important
Speaker 2 than hitting a baseball.
Speaker 3 Great, right? Apparently, Emily DiMaggio, who we also spoke to Tom’s widow, she said that he would call domme late in his life and say, I didn’t do anything with my life. And it would be, you know, 10 minutes into the conversation before Dom would say, well, what about the Marines? And that would be when Ted would finally say, yeah, I guess I did do something with my life if
Speaker 2 I except
Speaker 1 when he would reflect negatively about something. I never felt like he had
Speaker 2 regrets on on
Speaker 1 the things that mattered to him most. Yes. The fact that he failed at marriage bothered
Speaker 2 him
Speaker 1 and he would reflect on those things in such a way that you would know that he would like to have said, yes, I had this, that and the other. And most importantly, I raised a family that didn’t really happen. And I think that’s sad to even to the end.
Speaker 3 Well, then let’s stay with the end there for a second, the living out his days with John Henry and Claudia to some extent after Louise died, Louise died actually in the 90s, so she was not there at the end. Now, what do you think went on there between him and John Henry?
Speaker 1 Well, as Louise Louise death, I’ll never forget. It’s over Ted Williams in such a way when he called to tell me, he broke down on the phone with gasping tears, I had never heard him react so well, so differently. And it was to me, it was a strong recollection for him how much? A married life, if you want to call it that, even though they weren’t married, but he had his son and his son. Yes. Did some unseemly things, but he was there. And Ted said the thing that that people forget is that he’s here for me and it was there to do things for and take care of. Sort of wipe his nose. It was something that that mattered to Ted, so in that regard, he got to call John Henry a good thing for Ted.
Speaker 3 Did you know John Henry? What was he like?
Speaker 1 I got to know him a little bit and kind of liked him. I thought he is that he would be right there at the door when you went to the house, you know, sort of taken care of. Did did he do some unseemly things? Yes. But like I said, again, in the end, Ted appreciated the fact that he was there for. That makes sense.
Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you could try to avoid things saying things like like I said or, you know, as I said, or just get this for editing. Sure. We don’t need to go back. All right. So what about this whole idea of tipping the cap? You know, Ted, early in his career decides he’s never going to tip his cap. What what was that about?
Speaker 1 I got to tell you that that’s that’s a faded memory for me. I just know that something had happened. And believe me, if I could remember it exactly. I don’t I don’t remember I don’t remember why he wouldn’t do it. But if something had happened to make him say no, never again. It’s in it’s in the biography. Yeah, no.
Speaker 3 Well, what if it was was one of the writers had said it was the writers who who he got so angry. One of the writers who said, what kind of boy doesn’t go home and visit his mom during the winter? And he just thought that was crossing a line and said, I’m never going to give these guys the satisfaction of
Speaker 1 tipping my hand. That’s right. That’s that’s in the book, as a matter of fact. Sorry.
Speaker 3 No, it’s OK. I’ve read your book. That’s how I know it. You don’t need to remember it. OK, but could you talk about what it means to just to make that kind of decision to just cut off the fans like that?
Speaker 2 I don’t think it was
Speaker 1 necessarily
Speaker 2 a
Speaker 1 conscious effort to be different or for that matter, to be estranged, which is what he was in so many
Speaker 2 ways.
Speaker 1 I think that Ted was very supersensitive to any sign of criticism
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 any showing of disdain or unappreciative in
Speaker 2 this,
Speaker 1 and then he would react accordingly. And I mean, it’s funny, I didn’t think he would be that much of a reader of the newspapers, but he must have read them, you know, religiously because he was always having problems with things that were written. I mean, and the things he would say to the sportswriters in the locker room after a game you wouldn’t want to hear. But that was probably a part of his perfectionism, if you will. But that doesn’t excuse it. He was he was rude and uncomplimentary, to say the least. And and as a result, almost encouraged that kind of bridel warfare, if you want to call it that, with with other people.
Speaker 3 So great, that’s great. Did he ever talk to you about. About just flying? I mean, you mentioned that he knew about the engines and stuff. Did he like flying as much as he like he’s in the flight. He’s in the Pilots Hall of Fame. He’s in some Hall of fame for for obviously baseball and fishing and.
Speaker 2 Piloting.
Speaker 1 He, like he did with all of the things he made in a scientific study and from the very beginning at least, that’s what he told me, he liked the sensitivities that you’ve got, the excitement that you got and the and the accomplishment that you felt when you flew. I mean, the jets and warfare for the first time, really, and and vast numbers all over in the Korean War. And again, he studied it and appreciated it. And yes, I think he really liked flying.
Speaker 3 Did you ever talk to him about the the I mean, you must have thought it was in the book in the 1946 World Series that the great disappointment of being in one World Series, not doing well and losing.
Speaker 1 When he reflected on all that had happened to him, it was almost as if, yes, there was a failure there. The team didn’t win and that was the only chance I got. I think it was something that he, yes. Recognized as, quote, a failure, unquote, but that, you know, he’d done it so many other things. He wasn’t bragging when he said it, but I think that he felt like it just it just happens that way. But would you have like to relive it? He said many times I like to play another. He’d say, I’d like to have one more chance at it. He says, even at my age.
Speaker 3 Even in the 50s or 60s, he was still talking
Speaker 1 about, well, anything about that is that that it was remarkable that Ted could still do the things almost. I’ll never forget
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 Miami baseball, University of Miami call me one time and asked me if if Ted would come out. And they were playing in the college playoffs for their World Series and ate at a park in Miami, at the park at the university. And he asked me if Ted would come out and throw out the first ball. And I said, well, I’ll certainly ask and I think it’s not going to want to do that, but I called him and he said, well, are you going to be there? And I said, Yeah, I’ll go with you. Is that all right? I’ll go. We got to the park and it’s jammed span’s. They never had been announced that Ted was going to throw out the
Speaker 2 fresco and
Speaker 1 we came up to the side of the field. Ted was dressed in his usual summer relaxed clothing with rope soled shoes and a van on shirt. And Brown Frazier, the coach, came over and said, Ted,
Speaker 2 I think
Speaker 1 we’d like you to hit the first ball. This said, Oh, yeah. And I thought he was going to say no. Are you kidding? I’m not. Throw it out and I’m going to leave that.
Speaker 2 All right.
Speaker 1 And he went out to the batter’s box. And Frazier got on the mound because Frazier pitched in college. And you could hear it as phrases sort of warming it to get your talking, to throw harder, throw harder and finally gave him a wave, is it to say, OK, you’re throwing five balls to hit every single one on a line drive to right field. Two of them hit the wall
Speaker 2 at
Speaker 1 age, whatever. He was in his 50s at the time. He he never lost it. He was that was Ted Williams and he loved it.
Speaker 3 Great, great. What about his and maybe this goes back to his childhood, but how do you explain his just extreme generosity toward, like the Jimmy Fund?
Speaker 1 I don’t think I’ve ever been around a more generous human being. I mean, he was always trying to push things on me and I would let him, for the most part, that I’ve got worn out roads and rails in my tool shed that he gave me. And he insisted on me having a pistol because I needed something to ward off the enemy without. And he would he would he would give you things out of the spray. I mean, he was always he was so generous. He would he would bring people to places, pay their way. He he gave his World Series check to the clubhouse boy, Johnny or Orlando. He was always doing something like that, generous almost to the extreme.
Speaker 3 And with the kids,
Speaker 1 well, the kids, as far as I know, didn’t want for anything. I never I never saw him, you know, physically do anything, like give him. But there was there were times I’m sure he he brought like I said, he brought
Speaker 3 a well, I was going I was intending to ask more about the children of the Jimmy Fund. I mean, the sick kids and what he did for them.
Speaker 1 I think you could I think you could not just persuade, but. Cause to be active in Ted Williams, anything that he thought was worthy, the Jimmy Fund was certainly
Speaker 2 one
Speaker 1 people around him that especially people that that weren’t moneyed
Speaker 2 or
Speaker 1 had made it big in life always give me something to sell.
Speaker 3 Say, let’s let’s pause here while I finish coffee while they can. You need a cough drop. Well, I just took a drink of water and maybe cough or. How are you doing? I’m OK, Scott. OK, I’m back. Sorry. So the Jimmy Fund,
Speaker 1 the only thing about the Jimmy Fund that I remember that that left an
Speaker 2 impression was that he said I gave because they were worthy of my giving.
Speaker 1 And he said and I would do it all again, except I would do it more so if I could. He was that way with causes that he believed in. Funny thing about that was that to himself, he was not the least bit generous. I mean, yes, he lived in a nice house on Almereyda, but it wasn’t a mansion a he drove an old Ford around for a long time. When I saw him, I never saw him in a fancy car. Is it restaurants of choice? Were the what you I guess you’d call on the edge of being less or certainly less than the pompous. And he would. He knew the managers and the owners of the little places and he would eat a little place called Manny and on the Florida Keys, on Almereyda. And when he walked in the door, it would be, Hi Ted, how are you doing? And vice versa. And he would he would say something like, well, as a piano player come in, you know, which is ridiculous. But and in Washington, when he was a manager, his place to eat was a drugstore. That’s the way he was. He wasn’t in any way ostentatious. My wife and I were living at a place called Ocean Reef, which is quite nice on Key Largo. And when he would come and sometimes we would eat at the restaurant, he really didn’t like it because was a little too formal for him. He liked the casual, the most casual you could find.
Speaker 3 Do you ever wear like a necktie?
Speaker 1 He wouldn’t wear a necktie even if it called for it, because he just didn’t think it was important or for that matter, necessary. No, he didn’t need.
Speaker 3 Did he feel that he belonged in sort of, you know, society or did he have anything? Somebody suggested that he had a bit of an inferiority complex. Did you get that?
Speaker 1 I didn’t see that. I didn’t I thought that he felt in some areas that he was an expert and he certainly was. But I don’t know that he felt totally out of place in any of this this kind of interplay. But I do I do feel that he felt a whole lot better about what he was doing if he was comfortable in the environment.
Speaker 3 What is that? Is there any are you picking it up when we get up to the lab right now? I’m still hearing it, but not it’s not OK. I guess what I’m getting into is like who you know, in terms of class, like who was he friends with and who was he not friends with, you know?
Speaker 1 Well, he was certainly, for example,
Speaker 2 on the
Speaker 1 Florida Keys.
Speaker 2 I think
Speaker 1 every fishing guy knew Ted Williams
Speaker 2 and vice versa.
Speaker 1 One of his his best friends really down there was a fishing guide that he not only bantered with on the boat, but would have to his house for dinner. And Ted would a lot of times do the cooking for he was generous almost to the extreme with those kind of guys. The couple that did that took care of is his galley, his home away from home on the Murrumbidgee River in New Brunswick. He brought them the first. They didn’t have air conditioning. He brought them their first air conditioner. That was the Ted Williams that the people on the edge could appreciate. And again, got to
Speaker 2 know
Speaker 1 that he is friends. Were the clubhouse boy, Johnny Orlando, the manager of the local theater. Any any body that he felt comfortable with was his friend.
Speaker 3 And who did not like the sort of the big shots?
Speaker 1 I don’t think he liked. Well, this is a guess on my part. I don’t think he liked anybody that showed too much self worth anything ostentatious he would recoil from. And in some in some cases, it probably cost him because he was was quick to say, I don’t want to go back there or I don’t want to see him again if I have to. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t mix with Tom Yawkey,
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 owner of the Red Sox, because he could. And he had friends galore in the in the hierarchy hierarchy of politics who came to love him, but very mixed with them so that you could tell at the grave that kind of attention. Now, he didn’t he didn’t seem that at Ball and Ballroom’s. You saw him at that drugstore restaurant.
Speaker 2 Great.
Speaker 3 So the what about we haven’t discussed that his heritage, Mexican heritage. How did that play a part?
Speaker 2 I got to tell you that he
Speaker 1 didn’t he certainly didn’t recoil
Speaker 2 from it.
Speaker 1 But by the same token, he never bragged about it and never it never became an issue because it was such a small part of his inheritance. That’s from his mother’s side. But no, I don’t I don’t think that bothered him in the least.
Speaker 3 But the idea that’s been put forward and if you could just say Mexican heritage is not in your mind, OK. OK, but just the idea that he didn’t you know, it wasn’t known that he was that he had Mexican heritage while he was playing, was it?
Speaker 1 No. And tell you the truth, it wasn’t something it being his Mexican heritage, it wasn’t something that is partly Mexican because it just wasn’t a factor in his life. He didn’t he never complained about it, never talked about it, never made mention of it in casual conversation. But I don’t think he was necessarily ashamed of it at all because he was
Speaker 2 a
Speaker 1 grown man in an area where that was not uncommon in the San Diego area.
Speaker 3 So there’s an idea that some people have put forth that, you know, with the Negro League players and his when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966, he gave this great speech that nobody asked him to give. I guess I was going to say, where do you think that came from?
Speaker 1 Well, if you could say one thing about Ted Williams is that I think it was very positive, is that he didn’t have.
Speaker 2 Any kind of of ALGOL, let me put it another way.
Speaker 1 That’s that’s kind of a delicate area, because I don’t think that even in the conversations that we had, I don’t think that ever complained about or said anything negative
Speaker 2 about
Speaker 1 other races or other religions or anything like that. I think for that for that matter, I think he had a strong appreciation for the contributions of the satchel pages of baseball and that Jackie Robinson’s and he got along fine with him. In fact, a couple of his is favored players that did so well thanks to him were were were black. And he appreciated when they said things that I’m trying to think of the name. And Tony Gwynn.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 1 A number of the players that he helped were of a different color or black, and Tony Gwynn made it a point to say that the science of hitting was his Bible, basically, and Ted appreciated that he did it. He had no negative feelings at all
Speaker 2 about
Speaker 3 it, far from negative. He was the one nobody had ever even mentioned that. I know that Negro League player should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame until Ted said it in his induction speech.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And that’s about all I can say about what you just said,
Speaker 3 but I said it and you say it.
Speaker 1 All right. Ted’s appreciation
Speaker 2 for what
Speaker 1 what black players did for a baseball. Was such that when he made his
Speaker 2 his speech,
Speaker 1 his appreciation
Speaker 2 speech,
Speaker 1 we’re getting the Hall of Fame
Speaker 2 award,
Speaker 1 was it that he had hoped
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 there would be places galore in that
Speaker 2 hall for black players?
Speaker 3 And pretty soon there were.
Speaker 1 And right around the corner, they were standing side by side with Ted Williams, the Babe Ruth cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 Great, thank you. That was that was very welcome.
Speaker 1 Well, I didn’t really have that much thought about that.
Speaker 3 That’s right. Do you look at his career I’m sorry to jump back into I’m jumping back in time to 1940, one kind of time that with this very old school, very in 1941, you know, at the end of his third season, when he hits, you know, four or six, it’s almost like he’s 23 years old. He’s had these incredible first beginning to his career. The future could hardly look brighter in a way. Can you just sort of set that moment in time for for this young man with a future right in front of us? Just thinking about the actual film. We have a point here where it would be great to have someone come on and say essentially that and then the war comes and his he’s interrupted and goes on
Speaker 1 to talk about
Speaker 2 the time lost.
Speaker 1 By his five
Speaker 2 years in the military and the Marine Corps,
Speaker 1 flying jets, et cetera, et cetera, he wasn’t in combat in World War Two, but he was there for two years, stayed in America. And when you talk to him at that time,
Speaker 2 actually, he was there for three years. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1 three in it.
Speaker 3 I missed three in World War two and two.
Speaker 1 Yeah. OK, sorry. He missed the three years in World War
Speaker 2 Two and two in Korea.
Speaker 1 And when he talked about and you could tell that he privately would always. Regret not having played in those years, but he also had a great appreciation for what the military was doing and in effect, what his role was, even if it wasn’t major in World War two. But certainly he was in Korea and his descriptions of the things that post, most especially when he got shot down so badly that he had to crash land and barely saved his own life. But when he talked about those five years, he didn’t feel there was any really real regret because there was so much accomplishment that he felt
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 mainly because he
Speaker 2 loved the
Speaker 1 people he was around. You loved the fact that he was, quote, a soldier in an important battle, if you will.
Speaker 3 Can you tell me about that crash landing?
Speaker 1 Well, what happened? He was shot and hit over North Korea, that they had a
Speaker 2 low of flying
Speaker 1 start of. What had happened was he had been shot up over North Korea. They would just dropped bombs low flying into an encampment. And he was turning back and he realized because he thought the shutter, he saw the light on the on the dash. And he was he was heading back to South Korea
Speaker 2 where
Speaker 1 there was smoke and there was evidence of fire. And he said he called, as is the group leader,
Speaker 2 and that that
Speaker 1 pilot flew under his and he saw flames coming out
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 fluids of one kind or another, I guess. And he said, Ted, you got it. You got to jump out. You got it. You got to eject. And he was fortunate at that point. It was over South Korea. But Ted looked down at his knees and he said, we realized that were under what amounted to the dashboard. He said, I can’t believe my knees in here.
Speaker 2 And. His.
Speaker 1 What do you I can’t recall it, you know, in 08 and his flight leader said, Ted, I’m not talking about your knees, I’m talking about your life. And Ted said, these are my life. And he managed to keep going. And he wound up crash landing
Speaker 2 on
Speaker 1 a shorter landing strip that he would have had if he had been able to make the whole journey. And in South Korea. And as it came down,
Speaker 2 he
Speaker 1 realized that he had to be had to stay in, obviously, but he also had to brace himself. And he said it it went all the way to the end of the runway and into pilot something. But he said basically, he said, got up there, please, if you’re if you’re there, please. And he told me afterward, he said, and I think there is I said, what do you mean? And he said, I think there is a god of Christ up there looking after me.
Speaker 3 But he wasn’t a deeply religious man.
Speaker 1 No, no, he wasn’t,
Speaker 2 but
Speaker 1 but he he believed at that point in time for sure, he believed. Louise was was was a Christian lady,
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 and she she told me a couple of times that I think I think I’ll see him in heaven.
Speaker 3 She said what was so what was their relationship like? Did you see them yelling at what they eat?
Speaker 1 No, she didn’t. She didn’t see it as. She didn’t say thing about Louise is she understood probably better than anybody she’d gotten to know him in the 50s when she moved to Almereyda,
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 I don’t know which wife he was going through at that point, but she knew him. And when he finally gave up the last attempt at marriage, she was there and she had lost her own husband. And they when he saw her together, they were like pals. And you had to like her for it because she was she was pretty boisterous herself. But you could tell without a doubt that Ted loved her.
Speaker 3 You could
Speaker 1 tell. Oh, yeah. You could tell.
Speaker 3 Right. So. Do you think that do you think Kate ever felt like with John Henry that he was improving as a father? You said before, like he knew his liabilities, but he didn’t really change. What do you think he did get better as a father to John Henry and Claudia, then you’ve been the first go around.
Speaker 1 I don’t really see any difference that that was noticeable, that stood out. But I think that there was an appreciation there. And I think that that they certainly appreciated him. And like I said, excuse me. And John Henry was there for him at the end. He said even if even if there was some maybe unseemly things happening. By the same token, John Henry was there.
Speaker 3 What do you think of the whole cryonics thing? I mean, do you have anything to.
Speaker 1 I don’t I don’t think that I don’t think Ted would have agreed to that.
Speaker 2 But, you know,
Speaker 1 it’s almost a subset of information. I don’t I don’t see that as part of the Ted Williams life story by any means.
Speaker 3 Yeah, that’s that’s exactly my feeling. It’s not. And I was struggling with how to deal with it. We want to deal with it discreetly.
Speaker 1 Yeah, well, it’s not it’s not something that Ted certainly was aware of. So why even if somebody’s going to take somebody’s body, dead body and do something with it, that somebody didn’t necessarily have anything to say about or to do about it? I don’t think that Ted was involved at all,
Speaker 2 but I don’t know that. Right.
Speaker 1 I wouldn’t even get into that.
Speaker 3 Yeah. How in general did he it seems like his stature after he retired grew or stayed the same. Was that something he cared about? He saw he liked.
Speaker 1 I think that Ted, quote, appreciated, unquote,
Speaker 2 the fact that
Speaker 1 his stature did grow. I mean, when you think about the fact when he finally agreed to his tell his life story, people are still reading about it after all these years. People are still interested in it. After all these years. He’s a
Speaker 2 an icon and
Speaker 1 it’s not going to be erased by any attempt to undermine it. He was a special human being and a special athlete and a special American. And I think that’s probably the three things that he valued the most.
Speaker 3 Did he care about America being an American?
Speaker 1 I don’t you know, I never had any conversation about that, I just know that he he certainly appreciated the fact
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 for crying out loud, a baseball player could rise to the stature that he did and a country that appreciated it in every way. I think that was important to him. That’s why he served with when he served in the military. That’s why he served not just with with with pride, but with pleasure. I think he I think when you get into got him to talk about it, you can tell that it meant a lot to him. That rug on is on the floor of his house and her and
Speaker 2 I can’t think of the name of the town.
Speaker 3 Now, where do we go where it’s where Claudia lives. Oh, north of Tampa. I don’t remember the name Inverness.
Speaker 1 Yes.
Speaker 3 Tell me that story again. So he you noticed on his run.
Speaker 1 Well, that was what I had missed. OK. My son Josh, who’s now a captain in the Army, as a matter of fact, just had a baby boy.
Speaker 2 His wife did.
Speaker 1 We were at the Ted Ted’s house in Inverness. This was. Fairly recently, by comparison to other times we’ve talked about
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 Ted was showing me was taking me into a room that he’d set aside for all of
Speaker 2 the
Speaker 1 awards and trophies of blacks that he’d gotten. And as we got into the room, the rug was obviously new and fresh. And I stood back and Josh recognized he said, Mr. Williams, that’s the Marine insignia on that road. And they said, Yeah, kid, best team I ever played for.
Speaker 3 Great, great. I love that,
Speaker 1 and I say it better that time.
Speaker 3 I think they’re both they’re both really, really, really, really good. Yeah. Duopolistic, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think you’re in good shape and we are really trying to take market.
Speaker 2 So would you
Speaker 3 I’m hoping you’ll agree that he was sort of stubborn. There is one headline we found from a game in 1947 where as he was rounding the bases after a home run, he did take off his cap. But the headline is Ted was not tipping his cap. He was wiping his brow because it was sweaty. And he made a point of telling everybody, hey, you didn’t tip his cap. Have you ever heard that story?
Speaker 1 No, not really. I mean, I’ve heard it elements of it. I didn’t know I didn’t make a big deal out of my memory because that was sort of after we’d done everything.
Speaker 3 But would you call them stubborn?
Speaker 1 Oh, stubborn, sure. Yes, if he had a belief, he would have a tough time sharing him of it or even breaking into it. He believes strongly on the things that he felt strongly about his relationship to the fans or was obviously mixed. He had at the end when he came back for that special ceremony, he felt like they really were the best fans in baseball, but he certainly didn’t treat them that way for all those years.
Speaker 3 Now, you didn’t. That’s great. And and what about the final at bat? We haven’t really talked about his his final at bat.
Speaker 1 I don’t know if there’s anything more that I could say except that. I don’t think at the time
Speaker 2 when
Speaker 1 it happened that necessarily felt it was going to be his last time
Speaker 2 at bat
Speaker 1 and of course he got offers afterward, even though he was 42 years old at
Speaker 2 the time.
Speaker 1 But I think he did and the recollections that we did together, he did look back on
Speaker 2 it,
Speaker 1 I think, more with pride because it ended an important role in American history as well as American sports, and that he had played so beautifully in so many ways. Yes, he was difficult. Yes, he did a lot of crazy, nutty things by comparison. But by the same token, he wound up, quote, an American hero, unquote. And I think he deserved it.
Speaker 3 We talked earlier about his being an artist. If you think about an artist and their body of work in a way that final at bat, the final home run is almost.
Speaker 1 Oh, you’re talking about the home run. Yeah. OK, OK, so here’s his last. Turn it
Speaker 2 back and. He hits a home run.
Speaker 1 And I think that. And the artist vein that he was an artist in any of baseball, it couldn’t have been a more satisfying
Speaker 2 and a more indicative
Speaker 1 of what he was all about. Imagine a great baseball player who whose whole life was centered on hitting a baseball is very last time at bat. He hits a home run. Quite an achievement.
Speaker 3 Glad I asked. That was great. Yeah, the show you were a Tiger fan, but did you see him? You saw him play?
Speaker 1 I saw him. No, I didn’t. In person at the end of I saw him play at an exhibition in Miami. You know, when I say exhibition, when they were
Speaker 2 in
Speaker 1 training, he played somebody in Miami. Right. I saw him play, but I. I saw him hit baseballs like crazy when we were doing the science of painting. And that was a wonder in itself. I love to watch him into baseball. It was beautiful to see. Well, I told you this story. Obviously, I already have it of
Speaker 2 him
Speaker 1 at bat. And that’s a good story. By the way, that tie in with that,
Speaker 3 we’re telling you
Speaker 1 that the one at the ballpark with that, I asked him to hit the first ball.
Speaker 3 Right. Right. But when you were working on the science of hitting, he was retired. Oh, yeah. But you saw him hit. And what was it like to watch Ted Williams hit even then?
Speaker 1 Well, let’s see a.
Speaker 2 Not just an icon of sport, but.
Speaker 1 The great practitioner of that one thing in sport, they quote the toughest thing to do in sport, according to Ted Williams and other people, probably because, as he put it, you fail seven out of eight out of ten times and you’re a hero, meaning you’re about 300. So his understanding of it and his ability to derive from it, that understanding is great skills when you saw it in action. And no, I if I saw him play for, say, an exhibition, I don’t even remember. I just remember that I might have seen him play. But to see him in action after the fact, the size of hitting was enough to convince me that he was the greatest.
Speaker 3 Great, we’re about to reload. Oh, about to reload. Yes. OK. Yeah, you might have one more question on this. You know, we’re going to reload once you reload. That’s where I think we’re just about John. I want to go to 20, Montana, 50, 40, whatever it is, we’re done, OK? OK, we’re rolling in a lot of grief over there. Yeah. John, Texas market. So we’re talking about the last event we didn’t talk about and maybe you don’t want to, but the John Updike piece in The New Yorker that the Hub fans bid adieu that was published and that sort of cemented that in some ways as a as a moment. Do you know about that piece? Sure. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 Beautifully done.
Speaker 2 Beautifully done.
Speaker 3 Do you remember any of it?
Speaker 1 That episode of the DiMaggio thing in
Speaker 2 it now, I don’t think it did.
Speaker 3 One of the lines in it was still on the books when it was it was in the books when it was still in the air, I think.
Speaker 1 Or Updyke, first of all, it was a great
Speaker 2 writer, but
Speaker 1 secondly, I think and that one piece, the appreciation for what all 10 meant
Speaker 2 to
Speaker 1 sport generally and to the fans of
Speaker 2 Boston,
Speaker 1 and that’s who he’s writing for, I think was personified. It was it was Ted Williams and Updike called
Speaker 2 it and ran with it.
Speaker 3 A great one. All right. So what about you mentioned Joe DiMaggio? It seemed like the two of them, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, were often or so often compared and paired during their careers.
Speaker 1 It’s a funny thing, I was asked to come into the press box at an Army Navy game, as I recall, it was raining and excuse me, Joe DiMaggio was in the press box. They wanted me to say hello to Joe DiMaggio. And bear in mind that I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me. I didn’t think
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 we they took me over to him and they said, this is so-and-so. And Joe DiMaggio looked at me and he said, Yeah, yeah, the guy that wrote the Ted Williams book. And he said in such a way that made me think, sounds like you were really competitive with him in your own mind for sure, and that maybe you weren’t exactly in love with him. But I know that Ted appreciated Joe DiMaggio. And I think that that’s an indicator of how much Joe DiMaggio appreciated what Ted Williams was all about as far as hitting a baseball.
Speaker 3 How would you compare the two men? Could you know?
Speaker 1 I really I really could. You mean outside of baseball,
Speaker 3 just what they meant to baseball?
Speaker 2 You know,
Speaker 1 I think that that baseball, quote, couldn’t do without, unquote, those two
Speaker 2 players.
Speaker 1 I think Joe was magnificent and obviously the Yankees did. And the Yankees not only appreciated it, but benefited. And Ted Williams was one of a kind. But the fact that they they played against each other made it even more interesting because they were both so competitive.
Speaker 3 Right. You write in your book or in TED book, it might turn it back. He talks about the umpires and thought with the fans he fought with the press. You might expect that he would fight with the umpires, but he didn’t.
Speaker 1 And I’m not sure why, except that he said that when you’re competing and you know that you’ve got somebody that’s that’s not only watching you, but is going to affect how you do, you ought to respect what they’re doing. Did I have differences with umpires? Sure. That’s what he said. But by the same token, I appreciate that they’re very much a part of the game. And his his strongest, as I recall, his strongest negative
Speaker 2 expletive,
Speaker 1 if you will, towards the umpire was a first name after a called third strike. He said he would say and he did say a few times more than once. Well, no, that was no strike. And he would call him call the umpire by name. No, no strike Joe and walk away. But you never saw him yell at an umpire or waving his arms that are not fire or gesture. He because he believed that they were very much a part of the game.
Speaker 3 A couple of times in this interview, which is so wonderful, you’ve you’ve sort of imitated him. Can you can you. It seems like a good one. I mean, can you tell me about his voice and his laugh and his like his to be in his presence? What was his voice like?
Speaker 1 Ted was authoritative. He wasn’t he certainly wasn’t, quote, eloquent, unquote, but he could be eloquent at times when he wanted to strongly express himself
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 usually was at a time when he was less than appreciative of what was happening around him at that point in time. He can be very, very, very affected by the same token, in casual conversation. He was he I don’t think he tried to I don’t think it was in any way an affectation. I think that he could be authoritative when he was and did so he would tell you what he now just what he thought, but what he knew to be the facts. But he was fun to talk to tennis matches that we would have later on in his life when he was down on the keys and he’d come up and we would share a tennis match. The fun part was seeing the guys that wanted to play with him and my company because we would always be there, always be doubles, because at that point wasn’t playing singles. But one afternoon, one afternoon and we were playing and a good friend of mine just told retold this story the other day. Ted was having a bad day and he missed but a man at an overhead that might have won the match and he missed it badly and he turned and he threw his racquet like you might have thrown a bat and the racket sealed
Speaker 2 and
Speaker 1 wound up handled first into the fence and stuck there. Now, if I can remember anything about Ted, I’ll never forget him. Ted Williams, the Hall of Famer, climbing up that fence to get his tennis racket after a failed attempt at hitting a ball. I mean, it looked unbelievably, um, Ted, like
Speaker 3 I said, that’s great. I mean, he was obviously very competitive, but he never won a World Series. And you mentioned before the regret about that World Series. But did he in any way feel, you know, he got like the Boston Press would say, well, he’s not a winner? I mean, did he give any credence to that?
Speaker 1 You know, I don’t think that he it could be, but I never felt felt that except that that that he didn’t play only played in one World Series. I think that his overall career without it didn’t really diminish his stature. He certainly it certainly didn’t diminish his appeal. But, yes, he said that he would like to have played in another World Series or five more, you know, as Joe DiMaggio played. I don’t know how many Joe DiMaggio played in, but Ted didn’t get the chance. And that’s not just Ted’s fault. Obviously, he had to have players around you on the field and good pitching pitches coming in on your behalf, et cetera, et cetera. But he didn’t have that. And he didn’t have he didn’t have the greatness of talent around him that would have afforded itself to make the Red Sox annual contenders
Speaker 3 the because of his relationship to the to the writers. I was looking at this. You know, if he missed out on winning more MVP awards, you know, did he ever care about that?
Speaker 1 Was to me. You never said anything about it now. Winning it meant something to him for sure,
Speaker 2 when he did.
Speaker 3 And then do you know the story before his final year in the previous year? Fifty nine, I guess he hit 250 for something and he actually, you know, they sent him the contract and he crossed it out tonight. I need a pay cut. Do you know that story? The.
Speaker 2 What happened was he.
Speaker 1 Was the highest paid player in baseball
Speaker 2 at the time,
Speaker 1 as I recall, was like one hundred and twenty five thousand
Speaker 2 dollars
Speaker 1 and when he went in, he was going to play one more year. You already made up his mind for this. He was going to play one more year and he went in to see the general manager
Speaker 2 who
Speaker 1 had a contract already written and on his desk waiting for dad. And when he sat down and said, there it is, the same as last year, a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. And Ted said,
Speaker 2 no, sir.
Speaker 1 He said, I’m going to play one more year.
Speaker 2 This will be my last.
Speaker 1 But I’m going to play it for ninety thousand dollars he took himself. What would that be? Over 30 percent pay cut, but he made it clear that he was doing it because he didn’t deserve it the year before, but they didn’t know what they didn’t write about at the time because he didn’t let it be known he was suffering from an injury that I’ve forgotten. What what limb? I think it was his shoulder and it affected him the whole year. He knew it, but the press didn’t know it and therefore the public didn’t know it. But he made up his mind that now that he was healed, if
Speaker 2 he would
Speaker 1 play one more year and he played it for a reduction in salary that he
Speaker 2 demanded.
Speaker 3 Well, what does that say about.
Speaker 1 That says that he for the. Longest time he had said something that, by the way, that was also in the natural at Redford Bar. That he was the best player, not that way, but the fact that he said I wanted to walk down the street and have people say, there goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter ever lived. That’s that’s the one thing he’s his ambitions call for more than anything else, I’ve forgotten what Redford’s
Speaker 3 bottom line was. It was the same thing that drove me crazy.
Speaker 1 It was the same one, exactly the same life. The greatest player, I think he said, instead of the greatest theater. But Ted said, walk down the street and have people say, there goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.
Speaker 3 And so what kind of guy takes that he got them?
Speaker 1 That kind of guy
Speaker 2 who
Speaker 1 and Ted Williams case, somebody who had put a value on his ability,
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 he didn’t sanction it being anything but up to it, up to the expectations, because that’s what you expect. Let’s face it, you expect the fans around you and the management to appreciate what you’ve accomplished and what you are. And he didn’t feel like you could possibly go out with some 300 season. And sure enough, he batted over 300 his last year. Goodbye, Ted.
Speaker 3 All right, all right, all right, Andy, do you have anything? No, except appreciation. Yes. It’s great. All right. I have any questions lying around. Do you have anything? I just pick up things. New turf for us, I think. Or at least we’ve touched on you touched on the pay cut is really it’s incredible
Speaker 1 that he took it himself.
Speaker 3 Yeah. Can you want to. Can you imagine?
Speaker 1 Well, you know, the thing about that is that and this is not something we can talk about. But I heard later that that and I can’t think of the general managers name. It wasn’t Mr. Yoky. It was.
Speaker 2 Was it Cronon?
Speaker 1 No, no. This this was a front office guy.
Speaker 3 Yeah. Like Sullivan
Speaker 1 or somebody. But he was he was an important name with the Red Sox. I can’t think of his name, though.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And he I was told I, I never heard him talk about it, but he even talked about it. He didn’t believe in Ted Williams would take a pay cut. I mean, imagine doing that today. They make twenty million dollars a year and they bet 249, you know, and they signed football players. Now sign a contract,
Speaker 2 a
Speaker 1 preliminary, if you will, to what they were going to get paid for enough money. They could live out the rest of their lives without playing a single down or a single base. It you know, it doesn’t make any sense. We’ve gotten to the point where it’s outrageous what they do with money now in the big leagues and they pass it on to the fans, by the way, they don’t pay.
Speaker 3 Anything else?
Speaker 1 I’ll probably think of it as soon as I walk out the door.
Speaker 3 Actually, we’re going to do we’re going to do what’s called runestone, which was 30 seconds of sitting in silence on it. So no, no, no, I did. And I just need to file differently usually. OK. OK. Both cameras. OK.
Speaker 1 By the way, you’ve covered a lot of nice ground. I think this would be appreciated. Very much so. Oh, I wasn’t altogether sure that I was going
Speaker 2 to
Speaker 1 hear a deal with all that.
Speaker 2 It was fun.
Speaker 3 You got to look for jobs, though. It’s going to get record nothing for 30.
Speaker 1 Where should I look at?
Speaker 3 You don’t need to look all you need to do is just sit in silence for about 15 seconds.
Speaker 1 Keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 3 I have one other question, and actually it may not lead to anything other than just a thing, but there’s a film on YouTube that we found called Ted Williams in the Atlantic Salmon. And you are listed as the writer for this film. Do you know we’d love to use some of this film in our film. Do you know about this film?
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And who did it? He’s in Miami. OK, who are his sons? He’s he died. Is his name is Grant. Grab it. And it’s the film is with Tellier Tito. A.R. if you want me to I’ll find out.
Speaker 3 Great.
Speaker 1 Thank you. Give me, give me where I can reach you in a while. I got your cell phone right.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 3 We’d love to use some of that. Yeah. Tell me,
Speaker 1 by the way, that was definitely his favorite fish. That’s why I had the place in the on the Miramichi River.
Speaker 3 So what were the three big fish?
Speaker 1 There were three favorite fish that we went for and that’s what we wound up writing about because it was his idea, by the way,
Speaker 2 Bonefish
Speaker 1 tapin both off the Florida coast, Florida Keys, where fish so much. And thirdly, and probably for him, the most important was the Atlantic salmon, where he wound up buying a home on the river Remercie River. And the great thing about the Atlantic salmon, not just the Ted Williams, but anybody, including myself, who’s fish for them
Speaker 2 is
Speaker 1 the catching but also the eating. They are delicious. Bonefish, no, tapin no Atlantic salmon all you can get.
Speaker 3 What do you like about fishing?
Speaker 2 I think,
Speaker 1 first of all, if you if you saw him tying lures and is little workshop, wherever he had a house, he had a workshop that he would work on a bench and he had lures all over the place and lines and he would work on on tiang allure forever just to get it right. But yes, that and that was to say the least, that was the most difficult fish to catch. And it was with fly casting or the fly rod instead of a spinning gear that we use for tapin and Bonefish, a lot easier to fly. Rod is an art in itself. And Ted Williams was an artist with the fly rod. But most importantly, he loved the fish. He loved the history of it. He loved telling about it. He loved catching it. And then, of course, he loved eating it.
Speaker 3 Great.
Speaker 1 Thank you, John. You’re welcome.
Speaker 3 It’s really fun. We need you to sign two things. One is a release and the other is a baseball. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, there
Speaker 2 are no guarantees
Speaker 3 or at least a well hidden just list athletically. Is there something about hitting a baseball and casting? You know what? It’s sort of similar.
Speaker 1 Well, and encapsulating Ted Williams skills. And when he said and I think he was probably right, hitting a baseball is the single most difficult thing to
Speaker 2 do in sport.
Speaker 1 But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t equal skill or skills that are similar. And he would point out that the ability to use a fly rod and and for that matter, the ability to do other things with your arms, hands, feet, whatever in sport. But most especially he said that that.
Speaker 2 Oh, golly, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 I was about to say that, Ron,
Speaker 3 let me just take your time,
Speaker 2 it’s not film.
Speaker 1 He compared it to hitting a golf ball. And he said it takes much of the same artistic skills. What do you think about
Speaker 2 for the body, the hip
Speaker 1 turn hips before the hands, et cetera, et cetera? Body turn. But no matter what he said about anything else, it was clear that he thought
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 hitting a baseball took the most skill of anything. The outright hitting of a baseball facing a pitcher throwing the ball 95 miles an hour, you know,
Speaker 2 with
Speaker 1 your all your aches and pains that coming into play as you go through the act. When you think about it, hitting a baseball has all of the skills necessary that the body has to employ
Speaker 2 to do well.
Speaker 1 And that’s that’s basically what he was saying. When you think about it from from your feet to the head, most especially to the mind, the brain of what you’re doing. And that was the way
Speaker 3 he cared a lot about the mind game
Speaker 2 of hitting. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 I think that that was the thing that that affected him so much. Not just playing, but managing is how often players don’t pay enough attention. If he were to coach today, he would say,
Speaker 2 think
Speaker 1 about the game. Yes, but think about the skills that you’re seeing, what the pitcher is doing, what you just done, what what made you fail at this? It said he said that over and over again, I could find myself thinking I didn’t do this or I didn’t do that. Some little specific and that the swing that he missed out on permissable.
