Ted Williams: The Splendid Splinter

Ted Williams: The Splendid Splinter

Defying Gravity – Ted Williams

Although he didn’t enjoy the same adoring relationship with Boston’s fans, Ted Williams possessed the same kind of magic that Larry Bird had years later. Both made the impossible look simultaneously majestic and routine. Bird has been called many things: Larry Legend, The Hick from French Lick, even the Basketball Jesus, by a famous, fallen sports columnist with Boston roots of his own. To those Boston Red Sox fans of yore, Williams was The Kid, Teddy Ballgame and, of course, the Splendid Splinter. Splendid doesn’t quite cover it, though. Ted Williams was a splinter of the divine. If there was a perfect shooter, it might’ve been Larry Bird, but if there was a perfect hitter, it must’ve been Ted Williams.

Numbers That Defy Belief

Each had a career that was perhaps shorter than it should’ve been. Bird was plagued by back injuries in his 30s, whereas Williams finished his career with 2,654 hits and 521 home runs at the ripe age of 42. In 1960, his final season, he hit .316/.451/.645 with 29 home runs in 113 games. His OPS+ that season was 190. His OPS+ for his career? 190. He hit .328 at age 40, winning a batting title.

The year before, he hit .388. Years earlier, in 1941, he became the last man to hit at least .400, with a batting average of .406. Incredibly, that year did not bring him one of the two MVPs he bagged in his career. He finished second to none other than Joe DiMaggio.

He has the second-highest slugging percentage of all time, behind Babe Ruth. He got on base at a .482 clip, and no one has ever done better. He hit .344 for his career, a stat that should need no explanation. His full career statistics at Baseball Reference only deepen the sense of wonder.

Prime Years Lost to War

As I said above, injuries robbed Larry Bird of what should’ve been the end of his prime. Ted Williams lost the middle of his to factors far less prosaic.

The Splendid Splinter made his debut with the Boston Red Sox on April 20, 1939, shortly before the eruption of the hostilities in Europe that would quickly escalate into the Second World War. Ted Williams would spend four years, at the peak of his powers, in service to the country he loved. He flew fighter planes and trained others to do the same.

In his first game back in Boston in 1946, he hit a home run. He would lead the Red Sox to the World Series that year, but they lost in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals. Williams, for one of the few times in his career, was ineffective at the plate, hitting only .200/.333/.200.

Moments That Became Legend

He shrugged off the defeat and produced more years of luminous brilliance, along with some of the great moments in baseball history.

The Final At-Bat

He hit a home run in his final at-bat. John Updike wrote an essay about that home run, published in The New Yorker. That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore, but it didn’t really happen much then, either.

The Red Seat

There was this other time (you might’ve heard about it) that he hit a home run, too. Fighting gravity the whole way, that particular ball traveled 502 feet, punching its way through the straw hat of Joseph Boucher. To this day, even through the steroid era, no one has hit one farther in Fenway Park.

You know what’s coming next. We’ve all heard the story, but I have to repeat it. I can’t not repeat it. The seat where that ball landed? They painted it red. It’s still red today, alone in a sea of green seats at Fenway Park.

If that doesn’t give you chills, you’re either dead or you should give up this whole baseball thing. You might be watching the wrong sport.

The only man hitting home runs close to that far in 2015 was Giancarlo Stanton. Ted Williams was a big man for his era, standing 6’3″ and weighing more than 200 pounds, meaning he gave up about 3 inches and 50 pounds to Stanton.

A Monument to an Iconoclast

The beauty of the red seat goes beyond its obvious symbolism, for Ted Williams always had a combative relationship with the fans in Boston. He had a reputation, sometimes deserved and sometimes not, for arrogance. After a perceived slight early in his career, he refused to tip his hat to Boston fans after home runs. He was an iconoclast, a standout. So perhaps it’s fitting that the most legendary monument to the most legendary hitter ever to wear a Red Sox uniform is both part of the crowd and very much alone.

If you’re in Boston, go to Fenway. Put your hand on the seat. Touch history. Honor your heroes. Tip your hat to the man who refused to tip his.