Ted Williams - Teddy Ballgame (1939-1945)
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by user The shark
In the spring of 1939, as was expected, Ted Williams was summoned to Spring Training by the Boston Red Sox. This time, however, (and unlike in 1938) Ted was up for good. In fact, Boston manager Joe Cronin confided in Ted on Day One that no matter how the spring would go, he would be the team's starting right-fielder on Opening Day. Publicly, Cronin expressed faith in Williams. Privately, he had his doubts. After all, "The Kid" was but nineteen years old. Sure, he was already a great hitter. After all, he practiced and studied the craft more than anyone else alive. His defense, however, was suspect, and he showed little interest in improving it. And of course there was still the matter of his attitude. But he could hit, oh my, how he could hit. But when confiding with insiders, Cronin believed that it was rookie thirdbaseman Jim Tabor, not Williams, upon whom Boston's future success relied.
Williams made his Major League debut on April 20, 1939, batting sixth against the New York Yankees in the Bronx. Yankees 35-year-old ace Red Ruffing struck Williams out on a curve ball in his first Major League at-bat. In his second at-bat, however, Ted would even the score by driving a ball off the left field wall for his first Major League hit - a double. Three days later, against Philadelphia Athletics 28-year-old righty Luther Thomas, Williams registered his first home run and his first four-hit game. And just like that, not even a week into the season, the career of MLB's best-ever-hitter was off and running.
Ted Williams never met a knee-high fastball he didn't like. Similarly, in 1939, he never met a microphone he didn't like. He quickly became famous for speaking his mind to the press. And had the veterans on the team not despised the brash youngster, they likely would have reigned him in a bit, let him know that restraint was necessary when dealing with the media. But they didn't. They just let him go, probably even a little relieved that he was taking a good bit of the spotlight off of them and the underachieving baseball team on which they played. And it wouldn't be long before Williams found himself in a constant war of words with the Boston media. More on that later.
The 1939 season was largely a rousing success for the young phenom. Although he committed ninteen errors, showed occassional lapses in concentration or effort, and constantly rubbed his teammates the wrong way, Williams was magical with the bat. A mid-season move from the six-hole to cleanup helped provide him some protection in the lineup. By season's end, his .327 batting average and 31 home runs were second on the team. Only Jimmie Foxx's .360 and 35 were better. And his 145 RBI led all of baseball. But Williams' presence was not enough to propel the Sox to an AL pennant, as they finished 89-62, a distant second to Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees.
In the off-season, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey (who would have been getting raked over the coals by the Boston media had it not been for Williams usurping the lion's share of their ink) made a number of questionable moves. Namely, he sold left-fielder and fan favorite Joe Vosmik to Brooklyn for $25,000. In order to replace Vosmik, Williams moved to left. To fill the void in right, Yawkey bought the contract of Joltin' Joe's brother, Dom DiMaggio, for $75,000.
When the sun went up on the 1940 season, Williams was none too pleased to find that Cronin had moved him from fourth to third in the batting order. Jimmie Foxx was moved to cleanup. Williams complained that the move would cost him RBI's. Then, in the Sox home opener, when Ted went to take left field, he was booed. Boston's famously passionate yet demanding faithful were resentful of the preferencial treatment they perceived Williams was receiving. And, perhaps to a larger degree, they missed Vosmik. Perhaps most of their vocal displeasure was aimed at Yawkey, not Williams, for the misguided moves that the owner had made over the last seven years. But to Williams' ears, they were boos, they were coming from his hometown fans, and they were directed at him. All of those factors, combined with a slow start at the plate, had Williams in a snit. As his mood worsened, so did his defense. Largely blamed on indifference, Williams often loafed after balls hit to left and routinely displayed an obvious lack of hustle. After one play in particular, Sox ace Lefty Grove yelled at Williams and threatened to "punch him out". After that game, center-feilder Doc Cramer confronted Williams in the runway to the clubhouse. The verbal sparring escelated into a fist fight and the two men each landed several blows. After all of this, Williams refused to see any flaw in his approach and refused to change. And as one would imagine, his overall mood continued to deteriorate. Finally Cronin threatened to bench Teddy Ballgame, but could never quite bring himself to do it.
Up until this point, the Boston media had been reluctant to "bad-mouth" Williams, even though he had given them plenty of chances to. But the events that had led all involved to this point had become too large for one reporter to ignore. Harold Kaese of the Boston Transcript had seen enough. In late May, 1940, Kaese wrote a scathing article in which he accused Ted of selfishness, egoism, and lack of courage. That singular article prompted Boston's other six newspapers to jump on the bandwagon and before long, it was open season on Williams in the press. Not one to take such perceived abuse silently, Williams fired back. In August, he loosed his lips for Evening American columnist Austen Lake, saying that he has demanded to be traded. "I don't like the town, I don't like the people and the newspaper men have been on my back all year long." The war of words was on and would continue throughout his entire career. From that point on, Ted Williams' life in Boston would never be the same. And it was in 1940 that Williams swore to himself that he would never again tip his cap to the people of Boston - a promise he would keep for more than fifty years.
Despite all of the negativity that surrounded the team and the player in 1940, twenty-year-old Ted Williams led the Red Sox with a .344 batting average and a .594 slugging percentage. And he led of all of baseball with 134 runs scored. As one would expect, however, based on all of the extra-curriculars, the 1940 season was anything but a success for the Red Sox. They finished in 4th place, 8 games behind the AL Champion Detroit Tigers with a 82-72 record.
- Williams first four years in the big leagues. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest debuts ever seen.
<stats>
Player=Ted Williams
Type=Batting
Years=1939,1940,1941,1942
</stats>
1941 would play out to be a very different story. Williams arrived at Spring Training in great shape, both physically and mentally. The brooding and sulking that he had done in '40 was a thing of the past. His confidence was obvious from the first day. Writers and teammates alike made mention of how sure Ted seemed of himself. In fact, during a conversation with a couple of writers, Williams offered a foreshadowing of the upcoming season. "How can they stop me from hitting?" he asked with a smirk. "They can't. That's all." And he would spend the rest of that magical season proving it.
On May 15, in an ironic twist of fate that would set the tone for how the season would play out, Williams and Joe DiMaggio each started a hitting streak that would prove to be the longest of each man's career. Williams' streak lasted only 23 games. During the stretch, Williams had hit .488 to raise his season average to .430, prompting the Associated Press to produce the first column of its kind in eleven years - "Boston's Ted Williams has a good chance to be the first batter since Bill Terry in 1930 to hit .400". Meanwhile, as Ted's streak ended, DiMaggio's hitting streak continued going strong.
During the 1941 season, as Williams and DiMaggio kept firing proverbial shots across each other's bow, a curious thing began to happen. The more often that one was mentioned, the other was also. You'd hear "DiMaggio's hit in 33 straight games!" Then, "Yeah, well Ted Williams is hitting .428!" And, "DiMaggio's the better player!" Then, "Maybe, but Teddy Ballgame is the better hitter!" The two became the icons of their generation. The Yankees and the Red Sox became "DiMaggio's Yankees" and "Williams' Red Sox". These were the two best players in the game. And as the season progressed, their respective legends grew. Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio would be forever linked to one another by virtue of their accomplishments in the 1941 season. And now, even to this day, the events achieved by both men during that magical season are rememebered fondly in the annuls of baseball lore.
The All-Star Game that year was in Detroit at Tiger Stadium. At the break, DiMaggio had already surpassed the all-time hitting streak of 44 games, set by Wee Willie Keeler, and Williams was hitting over .400. There was a buzz around that game like no other. And Ted Williams embraced the spotlight. With the AL down 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth, Williams came to the plate with two runners on base and hit a Claude Passeau offering into the upper deck for a walk-off American League victory. Years later, he would reminisce fondly on that home run as the highlight of his career.
On July 17, DiMaggio's streak ended at 56 games - a record that stands to this day.
For the rest of that season, Williams managed to remain near (and usually over) the .400 mark. On September 7, in New York, while carrying a .400 average, Ted received a standing ovation from the New York crowd as he came to bat for the 400th time, the at-bat that would qualify him for the league batting title. With less than a month to go in the season, the mood was electric every time he came to bat. And each day that passed that saw his average remain above that magic mark, the more the electricity in the air seemed to intensify.
in late September, Williams and the Red Sox rolled into Philadelphia to face the Athletics for a three-game series to end the season. Teddy's average stood at .402. Joe Cronin mentioned to some members of the press that if Williams' average stood at or above .400, he would consider sitting him to preserve the mark.
In the first game, The Splinter went 1-4 against rookie knuckleballer Roger Wolff to drop his season average to .3995, a number that was later revealed would not have been considered .400 in the record books. Fueled by his pride and determination (not to mention how the press would respond if he didn't play both games of the next day's double header), Williams announced that there was no way that he would miss even one plate appearance on that final day.
In the first game of the twinbill, facing the immense pressure of history, Teddy Ballgame went 4-5 with a homerun to raise his average to .404 - a number high enough to sustain an 0-4 in the next game and still not fall below the magic mark of .400. But there would be no such 0-4 in the finale, as Williams went 2-3 to secure his place in history. His average ended up at .4057, the highest mark in the previous ten years - and what would remain the highest mark for at least the next 65. Although the Sox missed out once again on the pennant, the 1941 season was (and is still considered to this day to be) one of the greatest sports seasons in Boston's history. But a .406 average, a .735 slugging percentage, and missing out on the AL Triple Crown by only 5 RBI was not enough for the writers to give Williams the MVP Award, as DiMaggio took the honors. (See stat comparison below)
- Joe DiMaggio's 1941 MVP numbers:
<stats> Player=Joe DiMaggio Type=Batting Years=1941 </stats>
- Ted Williams' 1941 numbers:
<stats> Player=Ted Williams Type=Batting Years=1941 </stats>
Just over two months later, something happened that would have a dramatic effect on the life and career of Ted Williams. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
Based on his age and marital status, Ted Williams was a prime candidate for the draft that was sure to ensue. Instead of waiting to be drafted, Ted (like dozens of other MLB players) took the proactive approach and enlisted voluntarily. This would allow him to play one more full season before reporting for active duty. And all he did in 1942 was win the American League Triple Crown with a .356 average, 36 home runs, and 137 RBI. But the Sox finished in second...again. And the sportswriters refused to honor Ted with the MVP Award...again, opting instead to award it to Yankees secondbaseman Joe Gordon who posted unbelievably average numbers!! (See chart below)
- Joe Gordon's 1942 MVP numbers:
<stats> Player=Joe Gordon Type=Batting Years=1942 </stats>
- Ted Williams' 1942 numbers:
<stats> Player=Ted Williams Type=Batting Years=1942 </stats>
In November of 1942, Williams was called for active duty. After a period of intense training, and in protection of his country, he was assigned to duty as a fighter pilot in the South Pacific where he served admirably for three years.
In 1946, he would return to Boston in the best shape of his life and ready to play baseball again.
- Did you miss Part 1, "Ted Williams - The Early Years"? Click here.
- For Part 3: "Ted Williams - The Splendid Splinter (1946-1960)"? Click here.
- Source - "Red Sox Century"; Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson
External Links:
Date
Sun 08/13/06, 3:33 pm EST
