Friday, Sep 5, 2008
America's entry into World War II, in 1941, immediately followed one of the best baseball seasons of all time. DiMaggio had captured the nation's attention with his 56-game hitting streak (still unmatched) and Williams had finished the year with his ever-famous .406. At season's end, with one more double-header to play the next day, Williams' batting average stood at .39955. Manager Joe Cronin offered to let him sit out the games in order to guarantee the rounded-up .400 average. Williams and clubhouse boy Johnny Orlando walked the streets of Philadelphia that night and just talked about hitting, the A's pitchers he might face and whether he should play the game. Williams finally said, "The record's no good unless it's made in all the games." And so he played, batting 6 for 8 and bringing his average up to the now seemingly insurmountable .406. The Splinter had taken home his first batting title and had conquered the Boston media, the fans, the world.
The euphoria didn't last long, of course. With World War II breaking out, Williams' draft status was 1-A. He requested -- and received -- a deferment because his mother was dependent on him. By the time he got to spring training in 1942, his press pals were making his "un-American" life miserable. The fans crucified him. It was becoming increasingly popular in New England to hate Ted Williams. The heckling got so bad that, in one early-season game, Williams intentionally hit foul balls into the stands in attempts to hit one vociferous verbal attacker. Eventually, Williams relented and enlisted in the Navy Reserve, where he spent the next three years discovering a new love: flying.
He never made it into battle and returned to the field in 1946 with a vengeance, jawing at journalists and striking poses at the plate, hitting the first pitch he saw for a homer. That year, he had a new problem to deal with: a new defense, designed specifically for him by then Cleveland Indians manager Lou Boudreau. The "Williams shift" consisted of the opposing team moving right, leaving the left side of the field open, since Williams rarely hit there. It proved fairly successful until Williams clinched Boston's first pennant in 28 years with an inside-the-park homer poked up the left side -- away from the dreaded shift. Still, it was a tool managers used sporadically and effectively for years against Williams. Once, in an exhibition-game joke, nearly the entire opposition went and sat in the right-field bleachers when Williams came to bat. Even with the shift, Williams took the American League MVP that year (.342, 38 homers, 123 RBIs).
Finally, Boston was in the World Series and Williams had a chance to prove himself on higher ground. He bombed, batting .200 with one RBI. The poor numbers are mostly the result of an extremely swollen elbow from a league-demanded exhibition game. But the Boston press didn't care. Williams failed them.
Around this time, he had his first real temptation to tip his cap. Sox catcher Birdie Tebbetts nearly convinced him that when he did it, the crowd noise would be so loud he could say whatever he wanted to the fans -- "You goddamn SOBs!" -- and nobody would ever know. As Williams wrote in his autobiography, "That kind of appealed to me." When he hit his next homer at Fenway, he took the bases slowly, but he was still turning the idea over in his mind when he reached home plate. He took another batting title in 1948 (.369) and missed one by two-thousandths of a point in the 1949 season. He had to settle for just MVP that year.
In the '50s, Williams spent his time fighting a war in Korea, attempting to stay off the injured list, spending endless hours with kids with cancer and occasionally having lunch with Vice President Richard Nixon.
Williams' involvement with kids with cancer began through the Jimmy Fund, which raises money for research and for a Boston hospital. "I love kids, that's all, it's no virtue. A guy likes kids, he has to hope their lives are going to be good, that they will avoid the pitfalls he had. I think one of the greatest things ever said is that a man never stands so high as when he stoops to help a kid," he wrote in his autobiography.
Williams particularly enjoyed making speeches and visits to sick children without the media's attention. As former Jimmy Fund chief of security Mort Lederman told Ed Linn, author of "Hitter," a Williams bio: "Unlike most celebrities, Williams never had a demand. He doesn't care about getting into front door, back door, special car, special food, special spot. He never saw himself as a celebrity. He was a back-door guy, and I admired him for that." Perhaps because his brother had died of leukemia in 1960 or solely for his love of the cause, Williams didn't stop his work with the Jimmy Fund when he stopped playing ball. He is still sending plenty of checks, publicity and goodwill the fund's way.
As for Nixon, he began calling Williams' D.C. hotel to ask for lunch dates whenever the Sox were in town to take on the Washington Senators. What did they talk about? Well, Williams' passion, the Jimmy Fund, of course.
The Korean War put Williams in contact with quite a different kind of American celebrity: John Glenn or, as his war pals called him, Old Magnet Ass, because of the number of anti-aircraft artillery always coming after him. Glenn, who became an idol for Williams, chose Williams to fly at his wing and the pair went through some harrowing times together. While Williams earned a slew of medals, he also lost part of his hearing (resulting in his booming voice gaining even more volume), contracted a mysterious virus that stuck with him for years and had a couple of near-death experiences as he crammed his tall body into the tiny cockpit for 39 missions.
He was discharged in the summer of 1953, and he didn't think he ever wanted to play ball again. But the league invited him to throw out the first pitch at the All-Star Game and he was welcomed like the hero he was. So he started working out and he was back in action for the last 37 games, hitting .407. You couldn't make this guy stop hitting -- except when he got hurt.
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