July 6, 2002
THERE HE GOES :
The Williams Deal (Red Smith, January 11, 1952)It was fourteen years ago that he made his first trip to a Boston training camp. In his only full season of professional baseball he had caused some Pacific Coast League pitchers to wake up screaming in the night, but his talents as an outfielder had not been polished to a dazzling brilliance.In fact, the representative of one major league team had watched him play for San Diego and shuddered violently. "He's another Buzz Arlett," the man said, employing a standard of comparison that still causes strong men to turn pale, although it has been many years since the muscular Buzz plodded across major league outfields.
Anyhow, Boston was taking a chance and the kid was bound for Florida with several other players. Al Horwitz, a Philadelphia baseball writer visiting the camps, encountered them on a train and sat down to chat. They talked, naturally, about hitting. "You'll see some pretty fair hitters with the Red Sox," Horwitz said, "Joe Cronin, Mike Higgins, Jimmy Foxx -- "
Young Williams said he'd already seen some good hitters, out on the Coast.
"I know," Horwitz said, "but wait till you see Jimmy Foxx hit." The rookie gazed out the window dreamily. His fingers gripped the handle of an imaginary bat.
"Wait," he said, "until Foxx sees me hit."
There's a famous line in The Natural, that--like much of his book--Bernard Malamud actually borrowed from real-life. The young Roy Hobbes utters a bit of braggadocio that echoes Ted Williams who had said that his goal in life was that when he walked down the street people would say : "There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived".
Well, there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived. Godspeed, Ted.
And, for folks too young to remember, here are John Glenn's reminiscences about Ted Williams as a military pilot in the Korean War and more...
*SPECIAL COVERAGE : The Boston Globe
*COVERAGE : Boston Red Sox Official Site
*COVERAGE : Ted Williams (1918-2002) (ESPN Classic)
*COVERAGE : CNN/SI
*COVERAGE : CBS Sportsline
*Ted Williams.com
*OBITUARY : Baseball Loses Its Last .400 Hitter Ted Williams: 1918-2002 (Richard Pearson, July 6, 2002, Washington Post)
*OBITUARY : Ted Williams, Last Baseball Player to Hit .400, Dies at 83 (RICHARD GOLDSTEIN and ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr., July 6, 2002, NY Times)
*TRIBUTE : Softened Splinter, Splendid Goodbye (Thomas Boswell, July 6, 2002, Washington Post)
*ARTICLE : Boston Tips Its Cap on the Day Legend Dies (FOX BUTTERFIELD, July 5, 2002, NY Times)
*Salon's Brilliant Careers : Ted Williams : Almost 60 years ago, the greatest hitter who ever lived hit over .400 and no one has done it since. (Mark Miller, Oct. 24, 2000, Salon)
*ESPN's Sports Century : He had a science all of his own (Larry Schwartz, ESPN.com)
*BOOK : My Turn at Bat (1969) (Ted Williams)
*BOOK : The Science of Hitting (Ted Williams with John W. Underwood)