A birthday visit to The Kid

By Frank Deford

Originally posted: August 26, 1998

There can be nothing more disheartening than seeing an old person who we remember for the glories of youth -- a beautiful actress, say, now a faded flower. We want so much to think that people like that will always be the way they were.

And now, you see, I'm going to meet with Ted Williams, Teddy Ballgame, just before he turns 80 years of age. Number 9, The Splendid Splinter, eternally The Kid. For all his names, always and forever, foremost just The Kid.

I think it was Bob Knight, the basketball coach, who said that Williams was the only person, ever, who was the best in the world at three different things: hitting a baseball, fly-casting and piloting a jet fighter plane. A young fellow named John Glenn was his wingman in Korea.

Now we're at Williams' house, where he lives on the west coast of Florida, at 9 Ted Williams Drive, which is up on what is advertised as the second-highest hill in the Sunshine State. Anyway, it looks down on his museum, an absolute gem of a place that doesn't celebrate baseball stars. No, it celebrates baseball hitters.

And just so there's no mistake, when Ted Williams means hitters -- when he picks hitters for his museum -- he doesn't mean those punch-and-judy choke-up guys. A hitter, according to the best hitter there ever was, is somebody who can hit for power as well as hit for average. You got that?

And here comes Ted now. He's in shorts, with -- yes -- a Boston Red Sox cap on ... and he's using a walker. But I will tell you something: As impossible as it seems, even with a walker, Ted Williams has a swagger. Yes, sir.

Now he sits down, and boy is he ... fun. There's a baseball encyclopedia there, which we refer to regularly. Unlike a lot of great athletes who only play a game that comes naturally to them, Williams is an unadulterated baseball fan, a baseball expert. "Isn't that McGwire something!" he calls out in abject joy ... and admiration, too.

There is no jealousy in the man -- I suppose, because there's no insecurity if you're the best in the world at three different things. He works on the Veterans Committee to get his old lesser buddies into the Hall of Fame with him. He's also taken on the crusade of getting Shoeless Joe Jackson admitted to Cooperstown. Suddenly, in fact, Ted has an imaginary bat in his hands, and, sitting there, he's showing you how Ty Cobb swung, hands apart, pushing the ball, but then he's Shoeless Joe: smooth and full-out, like this ... well, like Ted Williams would swing when he came along in l939.

When Williams went into the Hall himself, he used much of his speech pumping for baseball to allow in the African-Americans from the old Negro Leagues. Now he's going to induct the great Japanese slugger, Sadaharu Oh, into his museum -- and what's the matter with Cooperstown? It's baseball isn't it, not American baseball?

The energy, the enthusiasm pours out. Once Ted Williams was "controversial," so-called. Joe DiMaggio, elegant and distant, a Yankee not a Bosox, was more honored. But, in time, the appreciation for Williams, the hitter and the man, has passed DiMaggio, passed them all. When I leave, I can only think: Damn, now this is an American.

Later that day, I see Williams again. He bursts into a crowded room where some very serious baseball fans are assembled, puts aside his walker and bellows out: "Any Marines in here?"

He'll celebrate his 80th birthday this Sunday, August 30th. Happy birthday, Kid.

Originally posted: August 26, 1998