An Inning with Ted Williams
While I was lying in my bunk reading the Sporting News, I could hear a commanding voice echoing through the woods. There was no mistaking that voice. It was strong, authoritative and filled with profanities. This was to be my distant introduction to the one, the only, Ted Williams.
Much of my youth was devoted to baseball. I knew Ted Williams was an excellent ball player, but that was of little consequence to me. After all, I was from New York and there were only two, maybe three ball players that really mattered. Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were the primary focal points for the dreams and admirations of thousands of kids, especially ones from the New York area. Ted Williams was tough, but he was an old man. Hell, he was as old as my own father.
Every kid who was worth his salt knew about Ted Williams. We all knew about his perfect vision, his dedication to the art of hitting and the fact that he was the last major league player to hit over .400 (.406 in 1941 to be exact) in a season. We knew he’d done two stints as a Marine pilot in World War II and Korea. He had even survived a crash landing in his jet fighter during the Korean War. Still, to a kid who saw Mickey and Willie in the newspaper and on television nearly every day, Ted was pretty far down the list. I mean, New York also had the likes of Whitey Ford, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campenella and Gil Hodges to name a few. Boston was nothing more than an enemy camp.
Ted Williams did however, run a baseball camp in Lakeville Massachusetts. The camp was about a ninety minute drive from Fenway Park if you were unlucky enough to be traveling in an old school bus stuffed to the windows with excited campers like me. I attended the camp during the summers of 1962 and 1963. Ted’s last year in the majors as a player was 1960. Even in that last season, he came out to his camp whenever the Red Sox were in town for a home stand. The summers I was there he was actively there almost every day.
He was no longer the ‘Splendid Splinter', the six foot, four inch gangly kid from San Diego who joined the Boston Red Sox in 1939 as a rookie. He had long ago filled out his lanky frame and now was headed into his forties and retirement from the sport he loved. He was one of the finest hitters that ever played baseball. He set many major league batting records during his twenty-two year career. Ted was also a very controversial player. He constantly battled both the press and the Boston fans alike through out his career, throwing back their criticism every time they turned it on him. He set his own high standards for his individual and team play. Ted never took his skills for granted, especially his hitting skills that he honed continuously his whole career. None of this constant turmoil ever dulled his skills however, and he managed to win two Triple Crowns, two Most Valuable Player awards, six batting championships, hit 521 lifetime homeruns and end his career with a .344 career batting average. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1965, in his first year of eligibility.
The only reason anyone went to Ted William’s Baseball camp was to play baseball. One could literally eat, drink and sleep baseball there. The boys at Ted’s camp ranged in age from nine to nineteen. The camp did have all the other activities one would expect to find at a summer camp. It had a lake for swimming, fishing (which incidently, was Ted’s favorite means of relaxation) and canoeing. It also had archery and rifle ranges nestled in the woods. The camp was about three miles from the nearest town, so the choice of gathering spots was restricted to the cabins, the mess hall or the ball fields. Baseball was always the main event. Even in the evenings after the youngest local boys went home, some of the older boys would use the little leaguers’ field to play a few games of homerun derby. The games usually lasted until they lost every ball they had in the growing darkness and thick under brush. Fortunately, they knew they could retrieve the balls in the morning after breakfast, long before the little leaguers returned to play.
Ted Williams could be a very intimidating man whether he was trying to be or not. That becomes more evident when you realize that you were viewing him from the eyes of a fourteen year olds’ perspective. After you got over the original Intimidation however, you soon realized that Ted was an excellent teacher and communicator. He loved to talk about and discuss the game of baseball. It wasn’t just the hitting aspects of the game that he focused on, but all of the games offensive and defensive strategies. He has remained an astute student of the game through out his entire life. In fact, he managed the Washington Senators in the late 1960s, some eight years after his retirement as a player and was still a batting instructor for the Red Sox until recentl
My best memory of those summers came about half way through my first season there. The ball diamond that we played on was in the middle of all the other ball fields. Our field was a good five minute walk from the next nearest diamond. Despite the distance, we always knew when Ted was in the area, because you could always hear him emphasizing some point to someone in his usual forthright manner. His authoritative tone could be heard all over the camp. Everyone waited to see who would be the next ballplayer that his critical eye and commentary fell upon. Sure enough, on this day our field was the next one in his path and I was the next batter. I was terrified, but I was determined not to flinch. I told myself to stay calm, take his advice, and apply i t to the situation at hand. I was kneeling in the on deck circle waiting for my turn at bat when he sat down behind me on our team’s bench next to our coach. I listened intently as he fired his instructions my way shouting, “watch the ball,” wait on the pitch, make it the pitch you want, make the pitcher throw what you want, wait on the right one.” Now oblivious to anyone or anything except the pitcher, I strode to the plate determined to face off against this soon to be (I hoped) hapless pitcher. So I waited, and I waited, letting a number of pitches go by unimpressed by their questionable proximity to the strike zone. All the while Ted was still barking his truths from the sidelines. Finally, the pitch that I’d heard him describe so well, came streaking toward me and in that instant, WHACK! All was, at least for the moment, right with the world as that ball headed for deep left center field moving rapidly toward an extended stay in the woods. Meanwhile, unbroken in my concentration, I ran the bases with equal abandon, as if there was a large hall of fame hell hound on my tail. Only after circling the bases and crossing home plate with the ball still camped in the woods, did I allow myself the slightest glance upward with the beginnings of a sheepish grin in the direction of the master.
However, the joke was on me. My coach had decided to announce to the other team that I had missed first base, which immediately took the wind out of my sails. Then in my confused state, I had to dash from my seat on the bench back to first base, before the ball finally found its way back to the infield and the game. My batting feat, my home run, had now been reduced to but a lowly single and that voice now was closer than ever behind me, bellowing over and over again the simple admonishment, “bush league, bush league”. I kept my reddened face staring out into left field trying to figure out how this fate had befallen me. Everyone else roared with laughter and delight. It was only after Ted moved on to the next field, that I got to laugh and share in the joke of which I had been the brunt.
There were a lot of great memories from my two summers there at Ted William’s Camp, but that one incident will always remain my favorite. Ted proved to be a considerate and generous man to his campers. He put in a great deal of his own time, effort and money, along with his staff’s fine efforts, to make his camp a good place for kids and baseball. At the ceremonial awards campfire on the last night of camp I was summoned before Ted again. On this occasion however, he handed me a plaque and an autographed baseball, shook my hand and congratulated me on being voted into his camp’s hall of fame. No tricks, no jokes. Boy, what a surprise! That was quite a turn- about from our earlier experience. Even with that special ending though, when I think of my days at Ted's camp, I invariably think of the bush league incident, and the presence of Ted Williams.
- Neil Kingsley