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A birthday visit to The
Kid
Posted: Wed 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.
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(Hy Peskin)
| 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.
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National
Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by
CNN/SI.
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