San Diego's Splendid Splinter

The final ball Ted Williams ever hit is denoted by that red seat...way out in RF. I've been to Fenway to see it, twice. Those years also happen to be years that the Sox won the WS so if some wealthy New Englander is seeing the connection I will gladly accept transport and accommodation this season to act as a talisman.

One of the earliest books I recall reading multiple times and referencing ad infinitum was Ted Williams' The Science of Hitting. During that period of time I played a game at his high school, Hoover, and the field named in his honor. I now live a long and lazy fly ball from Ted Williams Parkway. In the way of sports history, San Diego's is brief and fairly uneventful....but we do have Ted Williams..... a San Diego Padre way back in 1937.

I mention this because I just saw his documentary on HBO. It was well done and I enjoyed the prominent roles that both Jerry Coleman and Tony Gwynn played in helping to recount Teddy Ballgame's story. As an admirer of baseball history I also loved looking at the pursuit of numbers, the statistics. Ted Williams' career numbers are other worldly and absolutely sick.......even though he lost nearly 5 whole years of his prime serving in World War II and Korea. It's obscene to extrapolate what his final line would have looked like had he arrived on the scene just a decade later.

Despite the career numbers and the distinguished military record I somehow get the feeling that Ted Williams might be the sort of player that I can't stand in today's game.......surly, cocky and uncharacteristically absent when the stage is the biggest. As I consider The Splendid Splinter's flaws and attempt to compare him to some of the malcontents of recent memory, I quickly snap to, and consider a couple of remarkable anecdotes set forth about the baseball player......which ultimately lead to understanding of the man:

• On the final day of 1941 Ted Williams, with a double header scheduled, sat on a .3996 batting average, good enough for a rounded-up and official average of .400. That was not good enough for Ted Williams as sitting was unthinkable---"If I can't hit .400 all the way, I don't deserve it." Ted Williams played that double header, went 6 for 8 to finish at .406, and became the last man to surpass the mythical barrier. Wow, nearly 70 years ago. Here's another Williams quote that would seem at odds with today's MLB player: "If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400."

• I believe it was his last season when he visited with his GM and received his contract for $135, 000. He refused this amount claiming that his performance from the previous season didn't warrant such a figure........he instead took $90,000.

Those two points say a lot about the man. Enough for me to reconsider and say that there's no way I'd compare him to some of the fellas that embarrass the game regularly today.

San Diego bore the greatest hitter who ever lived.....so we've got that going for us.....which is nice.

For John Updike's classic, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu [Baseball Almanac]