Speaker 1 If you judge a society, a culture by its buildings, you know, you would have to say that that sport is the religion of our country in our time. I mean, the biggest buildings and in every city are the stadiums that have gone crazy and that there are sport in attendance at games and on Sundays for sure is a lot bigger than attendance at church. And if you have this whole mythology of sport in America, Ted is one of the patron saints, the ones that are right up there, you know that that everybody genuflect to.
Speaker 2 Ted Williams had a lot of nicknames. Can you list some of the nicknames that you can think of that people called Ted Williams?
Speaker 1 I call them Teddy Ballgame. They call him the thumper, the kid.
Speaker 2 I don’t know how splendid
Speaker 1 the splendid splinter. They call them the Splendid Splinter. And I I was setting up an email account at the time. I was writing the book and my email address is T.S. Game at Yahoo! Dot com, which is Theodore Samuel Ball game. So he did have the different design. I think the kid was the one that kind of kind of stayed no matter how old he got and why.
Speaker 2 Why do you think that nickname stuck with me?
Speaker 1 And I don’t know. I think he liked that. I think he really liked them all. OK, but it just I don’t know, there was a kiddish quality to him. I think, you know, the way he was petulant and and the way he played, he had an exuberance. And, you know, and there were times where he probably should go to his room. You know,
Speaker 2 it seemed like throughout his whole career and really his whole life drama kind of just followed. Ted Williams, why do you think that was?
Speaker 1 I think he created the drama. I think he’d like I think he was the guy that fueled his success by saying the world hates me, everybody’s against me, and I’m going to show that I was so because I’m going to show up. And he kind of created these situations with the press, with the fans that that he people would say negative things. And he would he would respond to them by saying, there I showed you. And I it’s not a unique situation in sports. I think a bunch of athletes do that. I mean, how many champions have we seen that said we were the only people that thought we could do it, you know, the only people who thought we were good for us, you know, and and he was fueled that way. And it’s interesting that that once his career was over, all that drama stopped. He was a very nice guy to sportswriters and to fans, and he was a terrific guy. But while he was playing, he was an irascible guy.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, it’s funny because you would have thought that someone like Ted Williams, once, you know, the thing that was his driving passion was was taken away from him, you would you would have thought he would just decline and gone downhill. But it wasn’t really the case.
Speaker 1 You know, it was like the pressure was off. You know, the the demons that he had working in his head to to succeed were gone.
Speaker 2 When you when you were researching this book, was there what was the thing about Ted Williams that surprised you more than anything else?
Speaker 1 I don’t know, I had had some dealings with him before I did the book, you know, and I caught him in his post his post playing days. And and I always told people that of all all the athletes I had ever met, the famous people, he measured up better than any of them, you know, I mean, he he was a big guy physically about six foot three. And he talked with a big booming voice. And and he had big booming opinions. You know, he he would be the first time I saw him at the Red Sox spring training. And he came in the room and everybody knew he was coming. It was a few days later after after the team had gotten there. And all of a sudden he comes walking in the room and they have two washing machines that are going full tilt. And he said to Vinnie Orlando, the equipment guy said, what kind of soap do you use to clean your uniforms? And Vinnie Orlando said, Tied and he tied. He said, why do you use tie? And he was booming. And I said, this guy is really huge, you know, and and he was like that about everything. And I don’t know what surprised me. I I guess I guess what surprised me was his private life was a lot of turmoil. You know, he had turmoil with his kids. He had turmoil in his marriages. He was kind of a, you know, a split personality kind of guy with high highs and lows. And I guess that surprised me.
Speaker 2 You know, with this this documentary is for American Masters. And I think it’s the first time they’ve profiled a ballplayer. I know that usually it’s like artists or scientists. Do you think with Ted Williams, I mean, you can sort of think of him in those light. Was he more of a scientist or more of an artist, you think?
Speaker 1 All right, I think I think more of a scientist, you know, I mean, I just want
Speaker 2 to get you restate because my questions cut
Speaker 1 out. Sure, sure. I think he he was both a scientist and an artist, but I think he was he was probably more of a scientist. He researched what he did. He did things the way he looked at hitting and the way he studied pictures and the way he he broke down the swing. He broke down the pitchers, the curveball. And it he broke down all the things, the little minutia that now are in computers. I mean, he was a one man computer. He he would go out and he would stand and watch the opposing pitcher warm up, you know, and before the game started, you know, nobody did that. He he just he just knew he he had the whole thing figured out. He has a book on hand. And he he did with John Underwood. And he has these graphs and stuff that that were all I mean, they’re saying scientifically sound. And, you know, 50 years later, they’re still the best books for a young hitter to get. That’s still a very, very well selling book.
Speaker 2 What was his philosophy to hitting? I mean, he had a very specific idea about how he went about it. He did talk about that.
Speaker 1 Well, one thing was he swung he swung upwards at the ball. There’s always a perpetual debate in baseball whether you should swing down at the ball and create action and singles and stuff. I’ve sitting up at a ball for power where you possibly could hit it out of the ballpark. Babe Ruth swung up with the ball and kind of revolutionized baseball when he did that because everybody had slowed down. And there is a great story. There’s a guy, Joe Lendio from Rhode Island, who owned the bar and he met Ted Williams and became Ted Williams, his big buddy and everything. And it would come to spring training and cooking meals and hanging around with them and drive them and stuff. And one day they were in Scottsdale, Arizona, right near the end of Ted’s career. And he said, Joe, he said, take a ride with me. There’s someone I want you to meet. And so Joe said, sure. And they drove. And it was went to this motel, a seedy old motel on the outskirts of Scottsdale, and they went down to room number seven or whatever and knocked on the door. And an old guy in a bathrobe and slippers came out and Ted said, Joe, Lendio, I want you to meet Ty Cobb. And they got in there and they were hanging around. And I don’t know if they were drinking, but they were talking and they got in an argument. And Ty Cobb was a big proponent of hitting down on the ball at times. And they went back and forth, down or up or down or up. And Ted finally says, well, I know how to settle this. He said, Ty Cobb says, you hit down. I say, you hit up. Joe, what do you say, Joe? Liniers speechlessness here he was the the best hitters in baseball ever. And if he was smart, he probably said it up on the ball. But Ted swallowed up the ball. He was very, very big about not swinging at a pitch outside of the strike zone. He liked to create the situation where he was in charge. You know, in the count, you know, hitters pitch, you know, two and one, three and one, something like that. And when you could narrow down what the pitcher could have to do or he’d have to come in with a fastball where he’d have to throw it. And his big is the big thing he would always say is get a good pitch to hit and get a good pitch to hit it. When he was managing, one guy told me for the Texas Rangers, he said he said, you know, Ted would always say that, get a good pitch to get a good pitch to hit. And he said you would try and you try and then the good pitch would come in and you’d fall it off and he’d say, you could hear Ted just swearing and pounding on the walls that you weren’t ready for the good pitch to hit.
Speaker 2 So I just want to go back to, you know, start at the beginning. Is it accurate to say he had like a troubled childhood?
Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so. I mean, he was. Yeah, sure he did. He had sort of a troubled childhood. He is father was sort of a drinkin man and not around. He was a photographer and was awful lot of times. And wound up getting divorced from his mother and his mother was very big in the Salvation Army and they lived in San Diego and she I mean, she dressed up in the Salvation Army uniform and would go across the border to Tijuana and the uniform with with guys with trumpets and drums and try and get drunks to come out of the bars. And she spent time in the Salvation Army and Ted and his younger brother, Danny, were kind of latchkey kids off on their own. And Danny sort of veered off to to doing the things kids do in their off on their own. But Ted found baseball and he was a very he was very good from the start and he threw himself into it. And that’s where he found his affirmation. And that’s what gave him his drive to become a great hitter. There’s an image of him. He used to he used to carry a stick or something and would walk down the street and like flowers would be in gardens and it would swing to hit the tops off the flowers. I mean, he was always, always practice and always doing something. And that’s where he found his his niche.
Speaker 2 I mean, was it true that the from the early age, he sort of had this ambition? I’m going to be the greatest hitter that ever lived or did that something?
Speaker 1 You know, he always had the ambition that he’d be the greatest hitter who ever lived. That’s what he would say in high school. And and he was kind of well on his way, signed right out of high school to play in the Pacific Coast League, which was the closest thing you could get to the major leagues. He was he was just a hitting machine.
Speaker 2 What was it that did? I mean, what did he love about hitting this is sort of the the repetitive nature of it. I mean, did he ever talk about that?
Speaker 1 He talked about hitting all the time, you know, I mean, he he probably probably adjusted the hitting strokes of more people and kids. I mean, one of the first things he would say to someone is, let me see your swing. You know, he’d say to women, the kids, to old guys, young guys, and they would kind of say, no, you got to do this and you got to do this and you got to get your hips. And I mean, he I guess he liked it because he knew it, you know, and he was very good at it. And and he wasn’t afraid to say that. He knew it was very good at it. And he was forever yelling at people and tell him, this is what you’re supposed to do. Not, sir. And he had a great curiosity with people. He was pretty was very good at
Speaker 2 getting back to his childhood again. What was his relationship like with his his mother and with his father? His father was kind of out of the picture and
Speaker 1 his father was definitely out of the picture. And he never really talked about his father and his mother. He was kind of distant from her, too. I think she embarrassed him, you know, when she would show up with the Salvation Army band or or she would take the kids whether and she’d be handing out leaflets and and doing things like that. He was always he was always, I don’t know, reticent to talk about his mother. You know, his mother did have that the Mexican heritage that he he kind of really disavowed, you know, not publicly disavowed but disavowed by never really talking about it. I don’t think a lot of people knew that he had any Mexican heritage in there.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, one thing you said in your book, which I thought was really interesting, was to him.
Speaker 1 Yeah, you just. That’s great. Thank you.
Speaker 2 No, I’m sorry. No problem. One thing you said in your book, which I thought was interesting, is that you look at Ted Williams and he looks very, you know, Anglo, you wouldn’t you never know that he had this Mexican heritage. But his brother Danny looked much more Mexican. And I think you sort of speculated that things have been reversed, whether it would have been more difficult for for Ted to achieve what he did. And you want to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 He didn’t look Mexican really at all, and his name certainly wasn’t Mexican and his brother, yes, got into trouble and sort of, I guess, meant more to the Mexican side of the street or was viewed that way and even looked more Mexican. But he just did delinquent kind of thing, stole cars and things like that, and led a somewhat troubled life. But Ted, I don’t know, Ted. Ted had that thing that that that the young athlete has in our culture. Where were the men come forward and really take good care of them and send them on to the next the next level of men to take care of them. And he was kind of taken care of, you know, right from high school because he could do this athletic thing. You know, it’s still it’s still that way today. If if you’re the star in Little League, all those managers are trying to get you to play for their team
Speaker 2 with the Mexican here. Did he does that did that was that even part of public knowledge that he was?
Speaker 1 No, I don’t think many people knew that he was Mexican. It was never really in the newspapers of the time. It was only later that that sort of came out and was sort of a surprise. And like I say, he never you know, he never spoke Spanish and he never had much to say. And I don’t even know if he ever thought about it. You know, maybe he did, but I don’t think so.
Speaker 2 Was Ted Williams the natural hitter?
Speaker 1 He always hated the idea that the people thought he was a natural hitter, there was that thing where his eyesight was supposedly 20, 15, and and the great thing that he could read, he could read a 78 RPM record of the day, he could read the label while it was spinning around and and all that. And he he was he came out against that, you know, that that really it wasn’t a gift. It was a learned thing. And I would say, you know, there’s a talent that you have to have. There’s a level of talent that you have to have to become a major league ball player. And he had that. And that’s a gift. A guy once said to me that who played in the major leagues, he said, you know, everybody’s out there trying to be a baseball player. He said, but there’s a gift that you have to have. And everybody in the major leagues has that gift. And if if you don’t have that gift, you’re never going to get there. I don’t care how many times you throw the ball against the wall or what do whatever. But but he took the gift and improved on the gift. And, you know, so it was a natural. Yes, but but he was great because he was beyond he went beyond what you would be would be a natural, I think.
Speaker 2 How would you describe Ted Williams personality as a young man when he was sort of coming up with the Padres and when he got taken by the Red Sox? I mean, what was his personality like?
Speaker 1 He was just young, young, young, coming coming up through the the minor leagues, and he was just young and full of himself. And that sort of set the tone. I mean, that’s why he he was called the kid because he was so young when he started. And the tone he set was the tone that it stuck with him for the rest of the rest of his life. I mean, he he basically grew up in baseball. I mean, his parents and stuff. I mean, whatever he learned, he learned it best. That’s why he swore all the time. He was the consummate curse word guy. And I mean, baseball was where he learned how you should act and what you should do. And he had great confidence in himself. He had great self-confidence. And he knew the hours he had put in and the time and and how much time he had spent thinking. And he had great self-confidence and and he had this kind of bipolar thing working, too, which made him very exuberant. But then also very
Speaker 2 I don’t know if
Speaker 1 he had he had to bad times to
Speaker 2 talk about this swearing thing, because I think what you said in your book, he just he didn’t have the kind of filter that most people have that tells you some situations. It’s just not appropriate to be using certain words. And he just didn’t like you’d be in front of kids in a restaurant and you
Speaker 1 would he like to swear? I mean, he he he was a master. He swore as well as anybody. I mean, and and when he said, God damn it, he meant it. He didn’t just say it is just who I stub my toe. He meant the God damn that thing that he started his tone. He was very creative in his swearing and he put the words in arrangements that you might not necessarily have heard before. And, you know, I’ve always been a connoisseur of swearing and I give him four stars that there was a thing at spring training. One year I was down and Winterhaven, Florida, with the Red Sox trained. And Ted was an instructor there. And I had my my little son. He was maybe five years old. And we went out to a steakhouse and Ted was there with four guys eating. And we went up to the salad bar, my little five year old son and I and I didn’t know Ted really. But one of the guys who was eating with him was a sportswriter from Detroit who I knew. And and he said, hi, Larry. And I said, hi, Joe. And and Ted looked over and he saw my son and he said, look at that kid. What a good looking kid. And he had that booming voice and he went across the hall, the whole room. Everybody looked, you know, Ted Williams is talking and and another guy at the table said, yeah. He said he looks like he’s going to be a great hitter, Ted. And Ted said, I don’t give a shit about that. That’s a good looking kid. And to this day, that that’s like one of my my ten life highlights, you know? I mean, hey, Ted Williams is kind of my idol and my son is forty five years old now. And I tell that story and he just tells me to shut up.
Speaker 2 It’s a. So then what about Ted Williams and his relationship with women? I mean, he had three three marriages of failed marriages. What was what was his relationship with with girls and women coming up?
Speaker 1 His first wife, his first wife. You know, it’s like his first girlfriend, really, I think, you know, he met her in Minnesota when he was in the minor leagues. And, you know, they got married and he went to the bar that he went off to fly airplanes in Second World War. And she came with him to Pensacola, Florida. And, you know, it was one of those you get married real young and and they were never really paired up. And then the second wife was was a really pretty woman from Chicago. And and I talked with her and she was interested and she said that he would just, you know, and that that whole thing, bipolar thing, he would just get really upset if she parked the car the wrong way or something and and he would just go crazy and throw things. And and she said she just couldn’t live with him. And then the third wife was was a model from Vermont, had she’d been a Vogue model. And her big thing was that she looked like Jacqueline Kennedy and and they got married and they had a tempestuous relationship. And it is really his fourth wife to the woman who stood by him the most was the woman, Louise, from from Florida, who had kind of been dumped for the the site, the second wife and the third wife, and still stood by him and was with him. You know, pretty much towards the end. I think he was just a tough guy to live with day after day. I think you had to batten down the hatches on a lot of days because. Because he wasn’t happy about subsid. He didn’t have to. I’ll say this about his religion. He didn’t have much, much of a background in growing up, you know, I mean, his mother was off with the with the Salvation Army and his wife. And like I say, baseball is where I grew up. And baseball is probably one of the more misogynist atmospheres you can grow up in. And so he didn’t have, like, a family background to really help them out and tell them this is the way you should be with with your wife and your kids.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I think in your book, you talked about like he went on a double date with some other player and he was just completely unsophisticated and like almost like a caveman didn’t didn’t know and, you know, had no clue how to act on it.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Especially when he was young and he was starting out. You know, guys that knew him in high school said they thought he never had a date in high school. And, you know, so he was just he was getting on the train a little late and a little uncouth, I guess.
Speaker 2 So talk about how did he go from being on the Pacific Coast League to joining the Red Sox organization, had that. Oh, man.
Speaker 1 I forget the name of the guy who was signed and there’s a.
Speaker 2 That didn’t work, just say
Speaker 1 that the Yankees were trying to sign him and they were a little slow and there was a scout on the West Coast for the Red Sox who engineered the whole deal. And and Ted’s father came back in for this short period of time and his mother and they kind of engineered the whole deal. And Ted wound up with the Red Sox.
Speaker 2 Tell me about that first spring training when you when you went to Florida and then and then ended up getting shipped off to Minnesota. What happened?
Speaker 1 He just he. Ted went to spring training the first year, convinced that he was going to, you know, just take over baseball and be the greatest thing ever, and and the other players really didn’t like him because he was so stuck on himself. And he he was he was really immature. And and I think management saw that immaturity in baseball at that time, you know, that there were only the 16 teams and and there was the reserve clause. And and teams didn’t put up with any nonsense. It didn’t matter if you were, you know, the next coming to Ted Williams. You know, they still they still said, wait a minute, this guy should go down to Minnesota and kind of learn how to live. And that’s what they basically sent him out for, that he they sent him out to get a little bit of humility and in some manners, I think.
Speaker 2 Did it work?
Speaker 1 To a degree, it worked to do great work sending him out to to get humility and manners. I mean, he came back, but early on he established that thing with the sportswriters and set up that situation where he was antagonistic and and became a subject of great debate and. When they when they sort of remodeled Fenway Park for him, they they put in the bullpen that still exists to this day and right field and the press called it Williamsburg and and everybody expected them to hit seven million home runs into Williamsburg. And it was it was throwing a lot of stuff on a very young guy. And and he kind of bristled about the whole thing.
Speaker 2 I mean, set the the stage a little bit with. Because the sports press in Boston was unlike anything that really have today where there was there was a ton of different newspapers in there and it was a very antagonistic relationship that he established with these people very early on. Just talk a bit about his how he kind of got off on the wrong foot with the Boston Press.
Speaker 1 I forget that incident, that there was something there is a thing at spring training where he he he refused to go out to dinner with a guy, and that sort of started the whole the whole thing. And the Williamsburg, you know, the the bullpen built just for him. And this sort of coddling of him didn’t hit a good chord. And there were 10, 12 papers at the time and they were all looking for their angles. And the Red Sox were really the only show in town sports wise. It was definitely a Red Sox city. And and there was a guy, the Colonel Dave Egan, who wrote for the Boston Rican-American, which was the tabloid, probably the best selling paper in town. And he was a very caustic guy. And right from the beginning, he didn’t like the way Ted Williams worked and he would just sit down and rip Ted Williams. And he never really came to the ballpark. He just ripped them from afar. And it was a bad situation between the colonel and Terry. There were some writers that there were on Ted’s side. But the colonel, if he had nothing to do to write for a specific day, he would just sit down and rip Ted Williams. Ray Flynn, who later became the mayor of Boston, used to sell the record American in the city, and he loved Ted Williams. And when the colonel would write another column about Ted Williams, Ray Flynn said he he would go through each paper and rip out the page with that column and he would send the he would sell the papers without the colonel’s column because he hated the way Ted Williams was being treated. And it just went back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker 2 Tell me about. Ted Williams, rookie year with Boston, I mean, he really he got off to a good start.
Speaker 1 I’d have to look at that
Speaker 2 event or what’s his relationship like with with other players? I mean, did was he the type that kind of went out and hung out with them, went out drinking and stuff like that?
Speaker 1 Ted Rowlands never really had much to do with the other players. I mean, what was made in his later life, you know, that he had this friendship with Johnny Pesky and but he really didn’t his his friends, the people he went out to eat with were like fans were like local sycophants, people who would would go, yes, Ted, you’re right. This Ted, you’re right. Instead, you’re right. And the ballplayers really wouldn’t do that. I mean, Ted, Ted kind of went where where people would say he was a genius and most ballplayers wouldn’t. And, you know, Johnny Pesky forever was like like his essential policy. You ours is is coconspirator. But Ted really and adored Ted. But Ted really didn’t give him a big tumble. You know, Ted was was off doing other things. And he really he wasn’t looking to talk baseball and baseball stuff. If he would make friends with a guy who ran a movie theater or, you know, a liquor salesman or somebody like that, and they would go off and do things
Speaker 2 and with a genuine friendships or whatever that they, as you say, like just kind of, you know. He was in charge of everything and it was a one sided, kind of worshipful relationship.
Speaker 1 Well, you know, they were genuine friendships and that that the people got something out of it because they could go home and say, Ted Williams is my buddy. And and and he got something out of it because these people just held up a nice mirror to him. You know, there was a guy, a liquor salesman, who said let a borrower’s car when. And the guy drove it, drove it to Hugo’s Lighthouse, a big restaurant in Scituate outside Boston. And a cop said, this is Ted Williams car. And he said, while you’re in there, he’s in the restaurant with girlfriend. They said, could I sit in the car? And he said, yeah. And he went and had dinner. They came out and there were five people in the car when he came out, you know, just kind of touching Ted’s stuff. And he was really he was really idolized at the time. He was the biggest thing in Boston.
Speaker 2 You know, something that that Dick Flavin said this morning when we talked to him was that he was idolized, but that kids didn’t. Like. They didn’t like, look up to him the way they did other players, because he was so kind of apart and different, but he was sort of on this pedestal. I mean, just I mean, you grew up with him as your idol. How did you see him as a kid growing up?
Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw him high and above other people. You know, I didn’t grow up in Boston. But I think I think if you said to yourself, well, I could grow up and be one of these other players, you know, I could grow up and I could be Jimmy Peirsol or Jackie Johnson or Sammy White or somebody like that. But Ted Williams, you know, I would just like to be around Ted Williams, that Billy Bulger, who was a politician, a big politician in Massachusetts and his brother was Whitey Bulger, the the noted criminal Billy Bulger said that they went to to Fenway Park one day and he met Ted Williams. And he said, if I had met Jesus Christ himself, he said I couldn’t have been more overwhelmed. You know, it was like being in the presence of a deity. And and that’s that is kind of the way it was. And, you know, it was important, I think, with Ted Williams is that it was a time where heroes were written about rather than viewed, you know. I mean, and when you wrote about a hero, it’s just such a bigger thing. I mean, he’s like Sir Lancelot is like somebody in a fairy tale. And then to see him in person is a huge thing. And I think we’ve lost a lot of that with with video and the way things are now. But when you wrote about the heroes, that they were more mythical, I think.
Speaker 2 What was his what was his relationship like? We talk about his relationship with the sportswriters and media, but what was his relationship like with the fans in Boston?
Speaker 1 He had a mixed relationship with the fans, I believe, you know, I think he he was the guy that that if there were twenty thousand people in the ballpark and nineteen thousand nine hundred and fifty eight of them were cheering for him and the other, you know, forty two people were yelling bad things. He heard the forty two people and and that’s that’s what kind of got him in trouble. And and there was it is his history, you know, that that the sportswriters would always point out that, that he he only got to one World Series. It didn’t work out too well. And, you know, the team the team was good some years, but other years I’m not good at all. And it was all tied to Ted, you know, and and they they would portray him as a selfish guy and looking out only for himself. And and I think some of the fans were bothered by that. But he was also he was right. He was also the most accommodating guy, the whole thing with the Jimmy Fund, which is a Boston charity for kids with cancer. He was he would go anywhere for that. He probably went to more. I don’t know, men, smokers and and things in legion halls. I mean, things that nobody would go to now. But he would go for it to see a couple of hundred guys and they’d have a raffle and the money would go to the gym.
Speaker 2 Yeah. Tell me just briefly how he became associated with the.
Speaker 1 I’m not exactly sure how the Boston Braves originally were tied into the Jimmy Fund and when they moved there, then when they moved to to to Milwaukee, the Red Sox became more involved. And and he just he really there it’s sort of a gift and a curse, I think, for the famous athlete that you can just go to a hospital and in your presence alone makes a lot of kids feel better. And you can either go and. Really like that or be kind of overwhelmed by it, and I think I think he just he just really responded to that.
Speaker 2 I want to talk about the season nineteen forty one, which was, you know, really kind of a magical year in baseball. First, first of all, tell me what would happen with Ted Williams in the 1941 all star game, because people said that he never really got the big hit, but that’s a case where he did get
Speaker 1 the big idea
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 1 he had the home run at the end of the game and he won the game. And, yeah, I was there in the ninth inning or
Speaker 2 I think it was a no go for. If you don’t
Speaker 1 remember, in 1941, he did get the big hit and he had he had a huge home run to win the all star game for the American League. And the All-Star Game was a huge thing at that time, far bigger than it is today. And the picture you often see when they show Ted Williams is him running around the bases after that homerun in that all star game series is like bounce. And he’s skipping almost. And you can see the joy that he has in hitting that homerun and. And sort of cementing his place in that in the heaven of baseball or whatever or in the stratosphere, and he just he just like that home run a lot. And it was it was something he could point out to all his critics and say, well, wait a minute, there was this.
Speaker 2 And I’m pretty sure right now that the Bush administration. I just want to make sure the that so 1941 is also, of course, the year of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak and the year that Ted Williams hit for a six. Talk a bit about sort of the DiMaggio Williams. Competition that year and how, you know, the kind of the attention went back and forth between them and in the end I think DiMaggio won MVP early.
Speaker 1 Oh, there’s just no good at all. It’s going to take again, I think. Yeah. Is it OK if we put that on their plate? Yes.
Speaker 2 You just turn off the.
Speaker 1 Airplane mode. Imagine Williams 1941, which was really the start of like a dance that then went between DiMaggio and Williams for for their entire careers, a thing where you measured one against the other and the measurements both started way up to scale. You know, Williams Williams achievement at hitting four or six has grown larger in time, but DiMaggio’s 56 game winning streak, I mean, those are two things that haven’t been equaled. I mean, every other record in baseball has pretty much been surpassed and left behind and, you know, but steroids and all of that, nothing happened to, you know, in all of this weight training and all that. Nothing has happened to change those two things that Ted Williams I talked to him later in his life and I asked him about about the four or six and the famous finish there were where he could have sat down around it. It would have been four hundred. And he went and played and in a doubleheader and went six for eight and became four or six. And he said hitting 400 at that time was not the biggest thing ever. You know, it had been done, I think, 11 years before by Bill Terry in the National League. And and you just suspected that someone was going to hit 400 pretty soon. And so I think in that regard, Ted, Ted’s achievement was kind of second place to DiMaggio’s achievement at that time because the 400 didn’t seem as memorable as the fifty six hit. But the two of them, it was just it was just an unbelievable season, you know, with the specter of. World War two, and and getting closer and closer, and it was just quiet here.
Speaker 2 But actually,
Speaker 1 could you put your glasses on? Sure, slipping. Yeah, yeah, especially when he makes me think harder. Screw patient yet.
Speaker 2 So you mentioned that the last day of the 41 season set that scene a little bit for me going into that day, he statistically he was already over 400. He could have set out what happens that
Speaker 1 he was three nine nine seven whatever, or something like that. But, you know, you could round it off. It would be 400 and he could have just done that. And a lot of guys have done that, you know, through the years. If if they’re batting average, if it looked like that they were going to lead the lead, the league in batting average, they just sat out the final game. And these are nothing games. Yeah. The Red Sox were weren’t involved and in any pennant race or anything like that. But he just decided that he wanted to play. And and he did say that if he if he knew that hitting 400 was such a big thing, maybe you would have changed his mind back then. But he just had the confidence to to go ahead and play. And it was a tough situation for him in that he was facing a bunch of pitchers that that have been called up at the end of the season. And he always preferred to to hit against pitchers that he had seen a bunch of times. He didn’t care if they were the best pitchers on another team. He would just know their different pitches and how they worked and where they like to like to attack him. And but he went in and just just swatted everything away and went six for eight. And it was at the end there was great celebration. He felt he felt vindicated and a lot of levels by doing that.
Speaker 2 I mean, how does all the things in sports, how difficult is it for Major League Baseball to get over 400 times and talk about that?
Speaker 1 It’s a tough thing to hit four hundred. And I think it’s it’s become tougher as the years have passed since Ted Williams did it. It was tough then for sure. But now as soon as you get close to 400 and it’s like the second week of August, you know, the the press starts following you around and every game is would be on ESPN and the cameras would be in front end. And, you know, I think it’s driven different people crazy when they’ve gotten close to it. I think it’s very hard to hit 400 to to just have the the presence of mind to to to commit yourself to every swing to to just make every at bat be important. I know a guy, a catcher once told me that Ted Williams never he said I never saw him check his swing at once. He once he started to swing, he would always swing. And he said, nobody does that except that. And. It’s a hard, hard thing if if if it was easier, you’d see a lot of other people doing it for two out of 10 times. But it’s pretty darn good.
Speaker 2 I’m just not sure. So so I’m wondering, you know, we mentioned that he had this kind of reputation is is possibly a selfish player, Ted Williams, care about winning or was it more kind of an individual effort for him? I mean,
Speaker 1 the great debate was always whether Ted Williams cared about hitting or in his own self, his own accomplishments or if he cared about winning. And that was where his style of hitting was offering critique that that there would be a time where where I mean, they invented the shift for him, where they would put an extra infielder over on the right side because because that’s where he hit, you know, 99 percent of the time. And all he would have to do would be to to change his stroke a little bit. And he would have an easy hit, but he would never do it because he didn’t want to give in. And there were times where it would seem that they could really use a patient that way or they could use something to. But he wouldn’t he would never, never deviate from his past. And that’s the hard thing about baseball. I’d say it’s an individual sport and it’s a team sport. And they don’t mesh up a lot of times. And and he was always criticized for being the individual. But but the individual success is what makes the team success, too. I think there might have been times where he could have swung out of the strike zone to try and hit a home run, you know, when they needed a home run in the bottom of the ninth or something like that. But he just wouldn’t.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I’ve heard that a few times. It seems such a strange concept today, you never hear someone criticized for not swinging, for swinging at a pitch that’s out there, not swinging at something, the sound of the strikes. And you always hear about people criticize, you know, swinging something in the dirt, like, oh, did you go after
Speaker 1 that or whatever. But like Wade Boggs played here, they they would criticize him for that, you know, that they know he never tried to hit the long ball. He never you know, it was just all about his averageness stuff. But he’s in the Hall of Fame, too, so.
Speaker 2 In World War Two broke out. Do we know what how Ted Williams responded to, like Pearl Harbor the beginning? I mean, did he have a strong, visceral reaction to it or do we
Speaker 1 know he didn’t go to the he didn’t go to the to the to the services and sign his name to anything like certain ballplayers did, you know, Bob Feller and certain guys went went to join right up. We don’t know. I don’t know what Ted’s initial reaction was, but he had a three day deferment. And because he was the support of his mother and and he kind of stuck with that through a deferment. And people people were joining joining the service everywhere. And he wanted to play the 1942 Susan and. He was getting a lot of heat for that because he said, I’ve got a deferment and I’m going to go along, so. His military career did not start auspiciously, he, you know, people I mean, the press here was mentioned and Jack Dempsey, who had been a draft dodger in World War One, and they had been talking about Ted and he he he was just tired. He he went out to the Great Lakes Naval Training Base and and he was thinking about joining the Navy out there. And Mickey Cochrane, who was a great player for the Detroit Tigers, was already there. And he said, you should join Ted because if if you don’t join, you’re going to get a lot of grief to be booing you all the time. And I was all turned out to hear he he wasn’t going to join because people were given grief. You know, he he he liked the grief. And so he went ahead and signed to play for that the 42 season and wound up volunteering for the naval flight program that allowed him to finish the forty two season before he went off.
Speaker 2 And what what kind of a career did you have during World War Two in
Speaker 1 World War Two? I mean, he he was a citizen soldier. You know, he wasn’t one of these these guys that, like Bob Feller right away said I put down my glove and I’m going to join the service and are going to have to beat the hunt or whatever here. The Japanese, I guess. But he he went because he had to go and he thought the best way to go would be to be a pilot. And he went through the different stages of flight training. And when he was in in Pensacola, Florida, for the final stage of flight training, the the the guy who was in charge of the flight training was a guy named Bob Kennedy who had played for the Chicago White Sox. And so Ted and he were friends from before. And at the end of his training, Bob Kennedy said you should stay here and and train pilots the way I am. And Ted said, sure. And he stayed and trained pilots. And that that’s where he was for most of World War Two until he he came up for some benefit up here in Boston. And John McCormick, who later became the speaker of the House and Congress, said, what’s Ted Williams doing here? Why is we fight and fighting in the war? And they said, well, you better sit down and Ted Williams is going to go fight. And so that’s when he had to leave Pensacola and he was in Pearl Harbor when the war in the Pacific wound down, he was gearing up to go to the war in the Pacific and playing baseball out there. So he he had a not a very adventurous trip through World War Two
Speaker 2 and just get three it one more times the day we. Did he have any feelings about not ever getting to see action? Was he anxious to be in combat during World War
Speaker 1 two or two? I don’t think he had any any feelings at all about not seeing action in World War Two, that the final thing was to at the end when the war ended in the Pacific, to get out of the service and not fulfill your entire commitment and his thing that he was a Marine pilot. Now, you had to sign a thing that you were in the non ready reserves, that you would be in the reserves. And so everybody signed the thing and said this is going to be shoved into a file cabinet and I’ll never see the surface again. And so off he went, because if he hadn’t signed that, I talked to another guy who said if you didn’t sign that they were going to send you to China or somewhere to to finish out your stretch and said Ted signed and came back and played ball again because then it cost another. And then and then the Korean War came up and they there had been talk about disbanding the Marine Corps flight program that they thought the Air Force would just take care of all this stuff. But then Korea came up and they had all the planes and stuff, but they didn’t have pilots. And so they went back to the dusty files that they had and they pulled out all the names of these guys who had signed and they were called back. And now all these guys who who during World War Two were like in their early 20s were now in their 30s. And and they were guys who are married now and had two kids and a house in the suburbs and a mortgage. And they were back that were back called into service. And Ted was one of them, you know, and it was a whole different thing. And he railed against the idea of going back. I mean, that’s a part that’s often overlooked in his military, you know, but, you know, he he was screaming about congressmen and what was going on. And he didn’t want to come back at all. But but he did because he was a citizen soldier. And and that’s what you had to do. And it was a whole different game because this lawyer from Boston said we came back and he said when we were training for World War Two, he said we used to we used to fly up there and. Touch wings and we do stuff like that, but he said we were all, you know, young guys, he said now we grew up. You said, get away from me. I don’t want you near me. You know, I mean, it was a whole different mindset going back like that. And and Ted was of that mindset. You know, he went anyway, grudgingly and. It started flying jet airplanes, they’ll a
Speaker 2 lot more to lose this time
Speaker 1 and a lot more to lose, and it much as much has been made about Ted’s prowess as a pilot. And he had a lot of prowess as a pilot in the Second World War when he was teaching guys to be pilots. But coming back to Korea, they had switched to these Panthera jets. And it was a whole other deal, you know, and the guys, the guys, they were the great pilots when the Panther jets were the guys that had started out when they were 19, 20 years old and had done everything with jets. It wasn’t these guys that came.
Speaker 2 I want to talk a little bit more about Korea in a minute, but to talk about the nineteen forty six season where the Red Sox won the pennant and it looked like they had a pretty good chance of winning the World Series. But they didn’t do what and how Ted Williams performed here series,
Speaker 1 the Red Sox won the pennant in 1946, which was a magic time because they they they’d never been a great team. But they when they came back from the war, just all the pieces seem to fit. And they had a magical year. And then they came up against and they they won they won their pennant race early and they were matched against the St. Louis Cardinals. And the Cardinals were in a dogfight in the National League to see who would win the pennant there and the Red Sox. And I think there was a playoff in the National League, a best out of three playoff. This is a mess.
Speaker 2 I’m not sure. But there was a little delay.
Speaker 1 Yeah, there was a delay between there was a delay while the cardinals were finishing their business, there was a delay. And so the Red Sox set up a series of three games where they would play a team called the American League All Stars, and and they would be able to get some game action in the American League. Joe DiMaggio came up for the American League, All Stars. They had a good team. And in the first of the three games, Ted got hit in the wrist with with with a pitch. And then he hit the elbow.
Speaker 2 I think, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 They they said that they set up a playoff, a three three games with the American League All Stars, and it was a very good team with Joe DiMaggio and everything. And this is just to keep the keep the Red Sox in tune. And in the first of the three games, take a hit in the elbow with a pitch and it hurt his elbow. And they canceled the last two games. And Ted had this elbow problem and he was bothered by it through the entire series. And he also had trouble with Harry Brackeen, who won three games for the Cardinals. And it was just a miserable World Series for Ted. And when the Red Sox did not win the World Series, it was all laid at Ted’s feet. And the thinking was, you know, he’s a young guy. There’ll be a lot of World Series to come and there were no more World Series to come. And, you know, 50 years later, I talked with Ted and I said, what was your biggest regret? And he said, the 1946 World Series. I mean, it still was biting at him 50 years later. And it was the moment where we had a chance to perform. And he really did it maybe could because because he’d been hurt and the
Speaker 2 elbow to me. But he had a bat at the end of the game seven where he had a runner in scoring position.
Unidentified But just there, um,
Speaker 2 I think he came up in the eighth or ninth inning and he could have kind of gone ahead and hopped up and you remember that
Speaker 1 and I I could say that, but
Speaker 2 I got to get it over with. So, you know, we talked about how, you know, if Ted really cared about winning or losing, how did he feel after the that World Series ended in the Red Sox loss? Do we know how he reacted?
Speaker 1 I can look it up. That’s actually.
Speaker 2 How did Ted Williams and. Deal with the integration of baseball, you know, the Red Sox are pretty late in the game and have African-Americans join the team with Williams attitude toward black players
Speaker 1 that the Red Sox were the latest in baseball to to have integration and come. Green was the guy and Ted really befriended Poncy Green, whom he went out of his way to to to throw a ball, so to green and always had been good. And I interviewed Ted late in life. And one question I asked him was, was it strange that, you know, that it was an all white enterprise or for most of your career? And he said, you know, he said, I never really thought about it. He said it existed. And you would say, of course you thought about it. He said, but I never thought about it. It was just that’s the way life is. And he said I would go to Washington and I would talk with the guys that worked in the, you know, the grounds crew and stuff. And they would say Josh Gibson hit this home run over the weekend and it was way over there and all that. And he said I would talk with them all about it. But he said I never I never said to myself, why isn’t Josh Gibson playing? And he said, and I should have, you know, and. And when it finally happened, Ted, Ted went out of his way to get to make policy ground feel comfortable, and when Ted went into the Hall of Fame, a big part of his speech was was about how players from the Negro Leagues should be in the Hall of Fame. And that was a somewhat revolutionary speech right there.
Speaker 2 What year was that? Would you think that it would have been
Speaker 1 like sixty five. Sixty six with that, he went in with Casey Stengel. I bet you can get that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 Do you remember this story when his first child was born and he was down in Florida fishing and some sports writer called him up and he was like he said something like, I have to go back and tell me tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 And that was sort of Ted when his child was born. I think his his his marriage was falling apart already. And and he was in Florida fishing and he liked to fish. And I think he had the feeling that he wasn’t going to make it in time for the birth. And so he just kept fishing and. And I think it kind of left the operation and it was sort of symbolic of Ted’s domestic relations that that happened and and when sportswriters talk to him about it, he he was not happy to talk about it. His family business had always been tough for him. I mean, there was a calm way back when he was when he was a young player and he hadn’t gone home to Minnesota to see his mother and to California, to California. He hadn’t gone home to California. There was a column written when he was a young guy and he hadn’t gone home to California to see his mother in the whole off season. He had gone to see his girlfriend, who became his wife in Minnesota instead. And Harold, a guy for the Boston Globe, wrote a column saying what kind of what kind of guy would not go home to see his mother. And Ted was was not happy with that. And it was that there was more of that. I don’t know, like the modern TMZ kinds of things with Ted that than most ballplayers had to face at that sort of time. That was part of being a deity.
Speaker 2 This. Talk about, you know, Ted Williams politics, you know, he was pretty conservative politically, and yet he had these kind of aspects where he seemed more kind of socially liberal, especially with the integration of baseball and befriending black players. And what was his political outlook like?
Speaker 1 I think Ted Williams was a conservative guy for sure. I mean, this is always I always tell the story that that he’s the reason that that the whole Bush family became became became president of the United States, that that Ted was retired and and and he was living in Florida and he got a call. George Bush had had lost the Iowa caucuses to Pat Robertson, the the evangelist. And someone else had to he’d come in third and now he’s in the New Hampshire primary. And would Ted come up and campaign for for George Bush and George Bush? And Ted said, sure. And he had never gotten involved in politics before. And he came up to New Hampshire and, you know, wherever they went, he went with Bush and wherever they went, they filled all these Grange halls and all this stuff. And Bush won New Hampshire in a in a landslide and went on to become president and his son became president when there was all this grouching about grousing about George W. Bush. And I would give these talks and say, well, Ted Williams is the reason that George W. Bush so he was a conservative guy and, you know, certainly an NRA kind of guy, I think. Yeah, I think he had a bumper sticker when he was in Winterhaven during during spring training. He had a bumper sticker on his and his American made Ford Ford station wagon that said, you know, if outlaws if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns or something like that. And and so he was it was very much along those lines on that show, of course. But but socially, I think he did have a heart, you know. I mean, he had a heart for charity and the racial thing. He was very good about that. So actually, I don’t think he was too, you know.
Speaker 2 So, you know, we talked about how he got called back to Korea. Tell me the story of his because it was pretty dramatic, his first combat flight in Korea.
Speaker 1 Yeah, Ted Ted was was was new to the scene and was stuffed into the cockpit of this Panther jet that everybody flew in in the Marines. He’s six feet three. And if you’re six feet four, you couldn’t fit in. So he was just about stuffed in there and off they went for this bombing mission as first bombing mission with John Glenn was part of his squadron and everything, the head of his squadron. And they went off and it was all the excitement and he flew in at the target, which was like 15, 15 miles away from. I can’t say the word Pyongyang or the capital of North Korea, and he dropped all his bombs and flew back up and, you know, got through everything and he was feeling very, very good. And then all of a sudden he noticed that there were some things wrong in the plane and he could see oil coming out. And his radio was crying and he realized that somewhere he had been hit and something had happened to the plane. And so he didn’t know what to do. And the big thing was you were supposed to fly out over the China Sea and eject and land in the China Sea and they would pick you up out there. But he didn’t want to do that because he was stuffed in the plane at six foot three and the ejection equipment was kind of new. And you had to explode this thing to shoot you off. And a lot of guys had broken different parts of their bodies. A lot of guys had broken backs and he could see his baseball career ending everything. So he decided he was going to fly this thing back to the base and try and land it. And so he he kind of took off his all on his own, but he was heading the wrong way. And this young guy, a guy named Hawkins, 22 years old, who is one of the hotshot pilots, noticed one of the planes heading off towards the capitol of North Korea. And he flew over there and kind of signal to him and and said, follow me. And so Ted was flying and he had no he had no he had no radio. And the oil was coming out and all his gauges were going crazy. And they decided that he was going to crash land back back at the base where they had taken off. And so Hawkins flew next to them all the way, kind of guiding them. And they they landed all the other planes except for Hawkins and Ted. And then it was Ted’s turn to give it a shot. And a guy named Woody Woodbury, who later became a national comedian and had a big nightclub in Miami. He was one of the pilots and he knew that Ted was going to try and crash land the plane. And Woody landed his plane and he said there was a truck with a big arrow you were supposed to follow. And when you landed, he said, But I waved like something was wrong with my plane where they said you could just pull it out. So I pulled it over on the side of the runway where I had like a 50 yard line seat because Ted Williams is going to crash land his plane. And so Ted goes and he tries to put his wheels down and instead of the wheels coming down, the plane goes on fire. And because all the oil has collected around the mechanism. So he’s coming in with no wheels and the plane’s on fire. And the guy, Hawkins, is yelling, eject, eject, but he doesn’t eject. And he comes in, he lands at two hundred miles an hour. And luckily, the landing strip where they were at was like a long, long, long, long, long. And he skids and kind of fires coming out and, you know, sparks and the plane’s going every which way and finally stop spending. And he’s safe. And he jumps out as fast as he can and he runs away from the plane. And Woody Woodbury watches all this and he says, this is olive drab Plymouth. I’m pulling up. And he says, Colonel, get out of the Plymouth and come up to Ted Williams. And Ted salutes and the colonel salutes and they talk and and the colonel gives Ted a piece of paper and Ted signs and gives it back to the colonel and he gets back in the car and they all go off. And so a couple days go by. And Woody Woodbury says to Ted, he said, you know, I watched the whole thing and it was unbelievable that you got out. And he said and then the colonel came out and he gave me that piece of paper to sign. He said, what was that? And that’s it. You know, he said, I go up there and I get my ass shot off and that son of a bitch comes out and asks me for my autograph. And that was the finish of his big crash landing. And he flew somewhere. I think he had thirty nine missions, but he was sick a lot. He had pneumonia and different things. And there were a lot of stories written about Ted and the crash landing and everything. And I think the Marines decided that the the idea would be to get him out of there. And so he kind of got out of there earlier than a bunch of people who are pilots over there.
Speaker 2 Now, there’s a story that you tell in your book. That I think Nick Davis. Let’s start the whole documentary with this. This story was kind of a little known event when he came back from Korea and and he goes and Yoky says, I’m going to go hit some balls. And he goes out on the field, just sort of set that that that scene for us and tell me that story with some detail, because I think we want to spend
Speaker 1 a little bit of time on. All right, there was a guy named George Sullivan who had been a batboy for the Red Sox in 1949 and lived in Cambridge and he had become friendly with Ted and Ted would sometimes drive him, drive him to Cambridge and let him off at the corner and Ted’s big Cadillac and go back to Brighton. And and George was it was the best point forty nine and the forty nine season got down to a playoff and or the 2009. See, the Red Sox were ahead by a game and they had to go to New York and play two more games to end the season. And if they won one of the two games, they’d be in the World Series. And the bad boys were given the choice of going to the two games in New York or going to the World Series. And George decided to go to the World Series and the Yankees went down and and the Red Sox went down to New York and the Yankees when the two games and there was no World Series. And the next year George came back to be the the bad boy. And he had grown like about five inches. And he was taller than Phil Rasoulof or any of the Yankees. And they said, you can’t fit the fat boy anymore. But he had this history with the Red Sox. And now he he was starting out as a as a young sportswriter, read like a local paper. And he had he had he had set up he was still he was still in college. And it set up an interview with Tom Yoky where where Tom Hockey was going to talk about owning the Red Sox and everything. But it was on this thing that Ted Williams came back from Korea and George Sullivan was sitting with his little notebook and in the office and Ted came in and Tommy jumped up and grabbed him and everything. And and Ted Ted, you know, was glad to be back. And Tom said, well, you’re going to go down and hit for a little bit, aren’t you, Ted? And Ted said, no, I’m going to die. Hit Thompson. Oh, come on. You got to go down and hit. And Ted said, no, I’m not going to go ahead. Come on. You’ve got to go ahead. And Yoky was was an all time fan kind of owner guy. And and I think I think he had like an inner Ted Williams thought that he he was ten ways. He used to take flies of the stuff and he kept going on and on. And Ted said, OK, I’ll do it. And George Solomon couldn’t believe all his stuff. And so he got done with the hockey and hurried down. And Ted got dressed and came out and there was a guy to pitch batting practice to him. And and people just started coming from everywhere because they heard that Ted Williams was back and Ted Williams was going to hit. And he he just got in the he got in the cage and. Nobody there at Fenway. He just started yelling line drives and home runs and just hit and hit and it happened and it was sort of a magical moment that here was Ted back from Korea and nothing had changed. You know, he was like a metronome. He was fabulous and right from the moment back.
Speaker 2 And then there’s a story that. You know,
Speaker 1 oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, and. Was it Joe Cronin was the manager, right?
Speaker 2 Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 Yeah, Joe Carollo was the manager of the general manager, I think he was the manager. Yeah, yeah. Ted Ted kept hitting these line drives and home runs in Manhattan and when he was done, he’s turned. And he said to Joe Cronon, the manager, I said, What are you do the home plate while I was away? And Joe Creuzot, what do we do? He said it’s not it’s not lined up perfectly. And Joe and he went away and they checked it out. And Ted was exactly right. It was like an inch off the wrong way and they were back in business.
Speaker 2 But wasn’t the lesson that after that batting practice session, someone looked his hands and his hands were bleeding?
Speaker 1 And I had George Sullivan looked at his hands at the end of the end and, you know, he had no he had no blisters. He had no head, had no blisters built up from his time in combat. And and his hands are bleeding. It was it was like a religious experience, I guess, you know, the state, the baseball stigmata. I should have read that over. I should have read that section of the book.
Speaker 2 No, it’s fine, you got it. All right, so we’re getting to you to take a water.
Speaker 1 Yes. And a lot of ambient sound at Fenway, and I’m sure you know.
Speaker 2 We’re going to. So tell me the story. Nineteen fifty four, Ted breaks his collarbone, decides he’s going to retire. Twenty nineteen fifty five. Was it it was like something to do with his divorce from his wife. I mean, how did that.
Speaker 1 Oh, just the thing. The guy the guy talks to him and that. And I have one story, and I think there’s a guy there’s a guy that I can look it up, there’s a guy who said, Ted, you have all these statistics that you that that might have been later. That might have been like about nineteen fifty nine. Fifty eight with.
Speaker 2 Let’s look at that. What about Ted Williams and fishing? I mean, why what did he love? Fishing.
Speaker 1 Ted Williams, like, he just he just fell into fishing with a passion that you don’t find from he was a guy of passions, you know, and when he found something that he liked, he really liked it. And he loved fly fishing. He loved he loved the whole idea of making the flies and he loved the process of catching the fish. He tried to catch, you know, the Atlantic salmon, which is which is a hard fish to catch. And. And in Florida, he went for the bone fish, which are also hard to catch. And you kind of need guides for both of those both of those fishing experiences. And he just fell into it. And when I was doing the book, I went to his place up MRI machine, the Miramichi River, up and up in New Brunswick, and his cabin was there. And I don’t know if anybody had been there since he had died. I mean, that his guide took me to the cabin. We went in and his waders were hanging from the ceiling. And it is fly fishing paraphernalia, advice and different things and and a special way up to do it. And there were books, you know, that there were were half read. It was it was it was quite an experience just being in there and kind of I don’t know, just it was more that better than the museum, you know, it was just. Wow. And and he was a good fisherman. I mean, he got into the culture of it up there in the summers and in the winters. And I Liberata, Florida, he was a huge fisherman and he had guides and there were his buddies and and he would talk fishing all the time that the guy up at the Marine Maché. We had had this big store, the bait and Rod and all of that stuff, he said I would throw him out sometimes when he would get in here and give his opinions on the fish. And he was a very good fisherman and he really loved that.
Speaker 2 And, you know, this is a way for him to sort of get away from the craziness of his life in baseball.
Speaker 1 But a lot of a lot of baseball players fish. It’s it’s a strange thing that that it must have something to do with that and it must have something to do with, I don’t know, the stroke of of casting and then and just the feeling of being away from it, that there is a magic, that baseball players find information. You’ll find that a lot of do the. The. I need new glasses.
Speaker 2 Was Ted Williams a loner?
Speaker 1 I think Ted Williams is very much a loner. I think. I think he enjoyed being alone. He like he liked meeting people, but he liked meeting people on a kind of Hey, how are you? Basis, you know, and he had easy things, like he was very nice with kids. And he would talk about could talk to kids and things, but he had trouble with his own kids, you know, and and he was very nice with what kind of people who came around, you know, and and he had different things, you know, people would take to take his picture and he’d say, hey, you take that lens cap off or what are you going to do if if if if you said something to Ted Williams that made him interested, he would engage with you. You know, if you just said, Ted, I’ve always thought you’re the greatest player ever, he would have no time for it. But if you said, you know, I don’t know what’s the best picture you ever thought he’d go on and on about Peter? You know, he he loved he loved that kind of stuff. But I think I think in his heart, he was a loner. I think he he kind of grown up alone and had to make his own decisions. And and and. I don’t know how much he trusted the judgment of other people, I like to sound judgment best.
Speaker 2 We talked a little bit about what he was like as a husband. What was he like as a father?
Speaker 1 I think he was a tough guy as a father. I think he was tough to please. I think he set a high standard for his kids and and, you know. Was around sometimes, not around sometimes. I think if you were a kid, you. You’re going to hear a bad word said to you and he when he was unhappy, he was very unhappy and I think he was a tough guy to grow up under. I mean, I. You know, I for sure, you know, wasn’t around and nobody was, but I just had that feeling that it was a tough guy. If you went fishing with Ted and you were in real good fisherman, you heard about how you should be as a fisherman. If you were if you were anything, you heard about it and. I think Ted’s wives had to head to head to polish up their kids egos a lot, you know, because I think Ted was just tough.
