♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

After forty years of intense research on all of the great sluggers in baseball history, I now know that I haven’t enjoyed working on anyone more than Ted Williams. I also love Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, but nobody moves me more than Teddy Ballgame. His story is just so compelling. Don’t ask me or any expert on human physiology about how such a skinny frame could generate such prodigious power. There is no logical answer. As a kid, Ted picked up a  bat, and decided that he would be the best-ever at hitting a baseball. Day after day, year after year, he practiced his craft until he achieved virtual perfection. Essentially, Williams “willed” himself to transcend the established science of batting. During his long career, balls flew from his bat as if the laws of physics had been suspended. We don’t know how he did it, he just did. Happy Birthday, Ted, and thanks for the memories!

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I have enjoyed many memorable experiences in my role as a baseball historian, including several interviews that I recall with considerable fondness. Yet, of all my interviews, one stands out above the rest. It was the time that I talked to Ted Williams at the Boston Red Sox’ spring training headquarters in Winter Haven, Florida on March 19, 1986.

I had been active as an historian for about seven years by then, and had successfully interviewed several prominent Major League players, mostly noteworthy sluggers. After researching Williams rather comprehensively for a few years, I wondered if he would agree to talk to me. I had heard that he didn’t like giving interviews, but I also knew that he loved talking baseball. I had established a career home run log for Ted, which included, at least, basic descriptions of all his 521 official Major League home runs. That so-called log also included all his Minor League and spring training homers.

So, I figured why not try. I called the Red Sox during the winter of 1985-1986, and spoke to Media Relations Director Dick Bresciani. He couldn’t promise anything, but agreed to mention my request to Ted.  When Dick re-contacted me with Williams’ positive response, I was pleased.  Since I was scheduled to travel to Disney World during my children’s spring break in March, the interview was set for then.

When I arrived at the Sox compound in Winter Haven, I first met with Bresciani. He told me to wait for Ted in the coaches’ corner of the locker room, and that I had been granted ten minutes to speak to the living legend. Only ten minutes? Oh well, I had hoped for more, but I certainly wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. At that exact moment, the great man himself rode by in the opposite direction in a golf cart. He gave off the aura of an ancient potentate. I had never seen an Egyptian pharaoh or medieval king, but that’s who I thought of at the passage of Teddy Ballgame. I dutifully proceeded into the locker room, and waited his arrival.

At precisely 10:30, as scheduled, Theodore Williams walked through the Red Sox locker room and into the adjoining space where the coaches dressed. He took one look at me, and said, “I hear that you want to talk to me about hitting home runs.” He was still imperious, but he also exuded kindness and warmth. I immediately felt comfortable.

Ted invited me to explain my work which I did over the course of the next few minutes. I really didn’t want to hurry, but I knew that there was a lot of ground to cover in my allotted time. He sat there nodding, and, when I was finished, he simply asked, “What do you want to ask me?”

I responded, “Ted, I’d like to know what you think is the longest ball that you ever hit.”

That was it! All I needed was to get Ted Williams talking about hitting. His first answer took us way past the original ten minute framework, and I could easily see that he wasn’t close to being finished. He identified his legendary “Red Seat Homer” from 1946 in Fenway Park and equally famous All-Star homer from 1941 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. After musing for another moment, he added, “Of course, I also hit one completely over that roof in Detroit during my rookie year.”

I then showed him the aforementioned home run log, which included red stars beside each of the three shots that he had just identified. His eyes gleamed as he reached out and said, “Let me take a look at that.” Williams spent the next few minutes leafing through my binder until he arrived at the page for his 1946 homers. As a visual reference, I had placed the stars in the margins beside any home run that I had estimated to have flown 450 feet or farther. 

As most fans know, Ted had been in military service from 1943 through 1945, so there was a three year gap in the records. He couldn’t quite figure out my system, and handed the binder back to me. Pointing to the red star beside the first entry for 1946, he grunted, “What’s this?” He was referring to his monstrous drive into the center field bleachers at Washington’s Griffith Stadium on April 16, 1946. That was his first Big League game in almost four years, but, according to my research, the ball had traveled about 470 feet in the air.

When I started to explain my entry, the sixty-seven year old Williams jumped from his seat, grabbed a bat, and pantomimed his swing from forty years earlier. As he swung through the imaginary ball, he shouted, “Low and away slider, and I went down and nailed that sonuvabitch!” The coaches were sitting around listening to the interview, and they spontaneously applauded. Joe Morgan, who later became the Sox manager, was among them, and Ted said to him, “Hey Joe, I liked hitting in that old park. Some guys didn’t like it there, but I always did okay.”

Taking his seat again, he leaned over and seemingly confided in me, “When the place was sold out, sometimes you couldn’t see the ball because of the shirts in the center field bleachers, but, other than that, I could always see the ball really well there.” I thought to myself, “Is this really happening? Is Ted Williams actually sharing his treasured memories with me?” Well, apparently he was, and I needed to remind myself to act like an historian instead of a starry-eyed kid.

After several more minutes of discussing his longest shots, Williams suddenly changed directions. “Who else is on your list? Who else are you working on?” I responded, “Well, of course, I’m researching Mickey Mantle and Frank Howard.” Ted had competed against Mickey for many years and had actually managed Big Frank, so he instantly nodded his approval of my selection of those two guys as among the few longest hitters in baseball history.

I then ventured, “Actually, at this point, I’ve got Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx as my two longest hitters ever. Maybe, there’s something wrong with my research, but that’s the way it looks to me right now.” Again, the aging icon leaped to his feet, this time exclaiming, “There’s nothing wrong with your research. That’s right where those two guys belong, and don’t let anybody tell you differently!”

Ted had been a teammate of Jimmie Foxx for a few seasons, and knew old Double X intimately. And, even though he had never actually seen the Bambino play, he still had some very interesting second-hand observations on which to base his assessment. Strolling around the space between the lockers and chairs, Williams elaborated:

            When I first came up in the Pacific Coast League (1936), I’d hear

            stories about long home runs. They’d point to a house across the

            street, and say that’s where Lou Gehrig hit one. Or a wood pile, 

            and say that’s where somebody else hit one. And then they’d point

            to a factory across another street farther from that house, and say 

            that’s where Babe Ruth hit one. I’d hear stories like that every-

            where I went.

Williams set distance standards in every Pacific Coast League town in which he played.

Yet, they were always runner-up standards. No matter how far he would hit one of his classic shots, he was always reminded that Babe Ruth had belted one even farther, sometimes much farther. When Ted considered that he was a regular visitor to those ballparks during his one-and-a-half seasons in the PCL, whereas Ruth played in them only a few times during barnstorming games, he was extremely impressed. So was I…to the point that I was motivated to spend years thereafter doing the follow-up research.

Predictably, Ted Williams had been right. When I finally finished evaluating Babe’s West Coast accomplishments two decades later, I thought again about my talk with Ted. Regarded by many as “Baseball’s Greatest Hitter” (something for which he was justifiably proud), Williams had unabashedly extolled the unique power of Babe Ruth. On the matter of Jimmie Foxx, who had been his teammate for over three years, Ted had even more to say. Don’t ever listen to anyone saying that Ted Williams was distant or aloof. Perhaps he was some of the time, but, when he let his guard down, he let it all the way down.

When he spoke about his long departed buddy (Jimmie Foxx), he became intensely emotional. According to Williams, Jimmie was the best and most powerful right-handed batsman that he had ever seen. Ted also categorized Foxx as one of the nicest and most likable human beings whom he had ever met. When I acknowledged to him that Jimmie Foxx had been my father’s favorite player and that my dad had seen him play many times during Jimmie’s early days in Philadelphia, Williams got a far away look in his eyes. It seemed like he wanted to say something more, but he couldn’t. After a few moments of silence, he finally whispered, “He was a real peach of a guy.”

Ted got back on track, and continued to recount all the power-hitting glories that he had seen. He talked about personal batting duels that he had staged with Rogers Hornsby who had coached him at Minneapolis in 1938. Those two ball-striking Goliaths sometimes got together before or after their American Association games, and played fanciful batting average contests. They would each start at .300, and take turns pitching to each other. When their batted balls shot out into the field, they would debate whether or not the imaginary fielders would have retired them. Based upon their conclusions, which were occasionally hotly contested, they kept track of their respective averages.

As might be expected, I listened intently, sometimes taking notes, until after seventy-five minutes, Williams looked up and then quickly ended the conversation. He wasn’t rude, just abrupt. In fact, he grabbed my shoulder, slapped me on the back, and said, “That was supposed to be for ten minutes, and we talked for an hour and fifteen minutes. I hope that you’re satisfied.” I assured him that I was, whereupon he walked out through the main locker room. I had been seated the entire time facing toward the coach’s area with my back to the larger players’ section. Now, as I stood up to say good-bye to Ted, I noticed that most of the Red Sox roster was dressed and standing in a semi-circle around us.

Somewhat confused, I asked an attendant what was going on, and he responded, “We rarely see him open up like that, and nobody wanted to miss what he had to say.” Until that moment, I didn’t even know that anyone was behind me. Apparently, the Sox were scheduled to play a spring exhibition game somewhere nearby, and they had dressed while waiting for the team bus. Now that Williams had finished pontificating, they slowly began to file outside. I was numb. It wasn’t just me who felt like I had been in fairyland. Even seasoned Major League players reacted to Ted Williams as if they were children in the presence of Santa Claus.

Of course, I stopped on my way out, and thanked Dick Bresciani for setting up the interview. He politely asked, “How did it go?” I assured him that everything had gone just fine. What else was I going to say? I wanted to show my gratitude, but I didn’t want to destroy my mantle of professional decorum. Yet, as I drove away, I pulled the car over to the side of the road, and thought for a moment. I had just traveled through the corridors of Ted Williams baseball mind. Along the way, we had been joined by Rogers Hornsby, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Bobby Feller, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and others. It was a feeling that I will never forget.

Bill Jenkinson

Baseball Historian (Copyright-2018)