Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams (August 30, 1918 - July 5, 2002), aka The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame or simply The Kid, was a Baseball Hall of Famer who spent 19 seasons, interrupted by military service, with the Boston Red Sox. Williams was a two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner who also won the Triple Crown twice and had a lifetime total of 521 home runs. He was also an avid fisherman who mantained, for some period, a television show about fishing. He was also inducted into the Fishing Hall of Fame.Williams was born in San Diego, California Teddy Samuel Williams in honor of Teddy Roosevelt (he later changed his name to Theodore) and is hailed as one of the finest hitters to have ever played the game. His two MVP Awards and two Triple Crowns came in different years. He is one of only two players (the other being Rogers Hornsby) to have won the Triple Crown twice.
In 1941, he came to the last day of the season with a batting average of .3996, which would be rounded up to .400 and thus make Williams the first man to hit .400 since Bill Terry in 1930. Although his manager left the decision to him, Williams opted to play in both games of a doubleheader and risk losing his record. He got 6 hits in 8 at bats, raising his season average to .406. No one has hit .400 since. This achievement was overshadowed at the time by Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. Their rivalry was accentuated by the press. Williams always felt himself the better hitter, but acknowledged DiMaggio was the better all-around player. Also in 1941, Williams set a major-league record for on-base percentage in a season at .551; that record would last until 2002 when Barry Bonds had an even more mind-boggling .582 OBP. One of Williams' more marginal, yet nonetheless thrilling, accomplishments was his unprecedented home run off of Rip Sewell's notorious eephus pitch at the All-Star Game.
Williams, an obsessive student of batting, hit for both power and average. In 1970 he wrote a book on the subject, The Science of Hitting; Revised (1986)), which is read by virtually every baseball player. He lacked foot speed, as attested by his career 24 steals, one inside-the-park home run, and one occasion of hitting the cycle. He felt that with more speed he could have raised his average considerably. He was an ordinary fielder.
Williams served as a US Marine pilot during World War II and the Korean War (serving in the same unit as John Glenn during the latter). These absences in the prime of his career significantly reduced his totals.
He retired from the game in 1960 after hitting a home run in his final at-bat, immortalized in The New Yorker essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" by John Updike. He served as manager for the Washington Senators and Texas Rangers during the 1960s and early 1970s. An avid, and very good, fly fisherman, after retiring from baseball he spent time each summer fishing the Miramichi River, in Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada.
After suffering a series of strokes and congestive heart failures he died of cardiac arrest in Crystal River, Florida.
A very public dispute over the disposition of Williams' body was waged after his death. Announcing there would be no funeral, John Henry Williams, Ted's son by his third wife, secretly had Ted's body flown to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, and placed in cryonic suspension. Fearing John Henry was planning to sell their father's DNA for possible cloning, Barbara Joyce Ferrell, Ted's daughter by his first wife, sued, saying his Will stated he wanted to be cremated (it should be noted that any such intention would not require cryonic suspension). John Henry's lawyer then produced an informal family pact signed by Ted, John Henry, and his sister, Ted's daughter, Claudia, in which they agreed "to be put into biostasis after we die." The dispute was resolved on December 20, 2002 when Ferrell withdrew her objections after a judge agreed that a $645,000 trust would be distributed equally among the siblings.
The Ted Williams Tunnel in Boston, Massachusetts was named in his honor while he was still alive.
Career Statistics
| G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG |
| 2,292 | 7,706 | 1,798 | 2,654 | 525 | 71 | 521 | 1,839 | 24 | 17 | 2,019 | 709 | .344 | .482 | .634 |
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