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Ted Williams biography

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  • PLACE OF DEATH: Inverness, Florida
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Baseball home-run legend Ted Williams played for the Boston Red Sox as their star left fielder for 21 years.

Synopsis

Ted Williams is a baseball legend who played for the Boston Red Sox for his entire 21-year career. As the team's left fielder, he won the Triple Crown twice, the first time before serving in World War II, and the second after he returned. Early in his career, he was heckled by fans. This started a sort of feud in which Williams never tipped his hat to the crowd until a speech in 1991.

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Quotes

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
– Ted Williams

(born Aug. 30, 1918, San Diego, Calif., U.S.—died July 5, 2002, Inverness, Fla.) professional baseball player who compiled a lifetime batting average of .344 as an outfielder with the American League Boston Red Sox from 1939 to 1960. He was the last player to hit .400 in Major League Baseball (.406 in 1941).

Williams was an excellent ballplayer as a child and later led his high school team to the state championships. He batted left-handed but threw right-handed, baseball's most desirable combination. Williams was signed by a minor league team in the Pacific Coast League, and after several seasons in San Diego and Minneapolis he was brought up to the Red Sox major league team in 1939. He had a fine rookie season with a batting average of .327.

His sophomore season in 1940 was more difficult. Although he batted .344 for the year, he was in something of a hitting slump in the early months. The criticism and heckling that arose from the sporting press and the fans soured Williams's attitude; thus began a career-long feud between Williams and the media and a love-hate relationship with Boston fans. Williams began refusing to acknowledge cheering fans—for the rest of his career he would never again tip his cap to the crowd.

In 1941 Williams hit for a season average of .406. His battle with the media continued, however. He had requested a draft deferment in 1942 because he was his mother's sole support. Many other players played baseball instead of enlisting in 1942 (Joe DiMaggio, for example), but the press called Williams's choice unpatriotic and derided him for it. He decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy and entered active duty in November 1942. In that same year he won the first of two Triple Crowns (in which a player has the best batting average, most home runs, and most runs batted in [RBIs] during a single season).

Williams missed the baseball seasons of 1943–45 training and serving as a Navy flyer, but he saw no combat. Upon his return to baseball in 1946 he had lost none of his skill, hitting .342 in 1946 and in 1947 winning his second Triple Crown. In 1952 he was once again called up for military service, and for most of the '52 and '53 seasons he served as a pilot during the Korean War, this time in combat. (He batted .400 and .407 respectively for these years, but because he played only 43 games the records are not for complete seasons and therefore are not counted.)

Williams hit a career total of 521 home runs, even though he lost five prime years of his career to military service. He won the American League batting title in 1958 (at age 40) with a .328 average

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