Ted Williams


Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams (August 30, 1918 - July 5, 2002), aka The
Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame or simply The Kid, was a United States
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 game 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. Given the option by his manager,
Williams opted to play and risk losing his record. He got 4 hits in 6 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, but he and DiMaggio
apparently agreed that Williams was the better hitter and DiMaggio the
better all-round player.

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, 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 in the military as a US Marine pilot during both World War
II and the Korean War (serving in the same unit as John Glenn during the
latter). These absences in the prime of 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 between family
members was waged after his death. His son, John Henry Williams, had the
body vitrified and stored at Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a provider of
cryonics services in Scottsdale, Arizona. His daughter, Barbara Joyce
Williams Ferrell, wanted her father's body cremated citing Williams' 1996
will. Various friends and acquaintances chimed in to support Ferrell, but
the courts upheld Alcor's careful documentation of Williams final wishes.
Ferrell also alleged that her brother previously expressed an intention to
sell genetic material taken from their father for the purposes of cloning
the "Splendid Splinter". It should be noted that any such intention would
not require cryonic suspension. 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 Williams' 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  3BHR  RBI  SB CSBB    SO BA   OBP SLG
2,292 7,7061,798 2,654525 71521 1,83924 172,019 709.344 .482.634