Book #2

My Turn At Bat by Ted Williams and John Underwood

This doesn't bode well, I finished the book over a week ago. Oh well.

I of course knew of Ted Williams and his best season average record (mainly because George Brett came close however many years ago), but that was about it. As a Yankees fan growing up, I was supposed to hate the Red Sox, so I didn't really look into any of their history, other than Babe Ruth and the Curse. But I digress.

This book showed up at Sarah's lending library that she has at work, so I picked it up, hoping it would get me excited to watch some baseball this year (I read Jim Bouton's Ball Four around this time last year, but it didn't work). It was definitely an interesting read. You get the feeling that however much Ted Williams loved and intently studied baseball, he had more fun fishing. The book goes through his not so great childhood and his playing career and his stormy relationship with sportswriters and fans. He definitely hated most sports writers, but he seemed kind of ambivalent about his fans. He apparently only tipped his cap to the fans once, and refused to do it ever again, despite their love for him. I really didn't understand that, but what do I know? Maybe he just wanted to go fishing.

I did not know that he was in WWII and Korea and lost 5 seasons of playing time. It makes you wonder how many more records he would have had, as he hit over 500 home runs during his career. It also is puzzling that the Red Sox never parlayed a World Series win during Williams' tenure there (they only made it once, and Williams only went 5 for 25), but I suppose that one player does not a team make.

The impression I had of Williams before I read the book was that of an excellent player who wasn't a team player and was mean to fans. From reading the book (and since he had a co-writer, you really don't know how much was embellished or cut out), this idea didn't really change very much for me, but he was pretty self-effacing. He was his own hardest critic, even more so than the sports writers he loathed. He spells out in the book that the reason he was so good is that he was constantly practicing and striving to be better. His one goal was to be the greatest hitter who ever lived, and I think he came pretty close to succeeding on that front.

I highly recommend this book to any baseball fan, especially if you like the glory days of baseball, when substance abuse meant drinking a lot and eating a ton of hot dogs before the game. The names he rattles off almost second-handedly in the book are like a Who's Who of baseball greats from the past. The book was written in 1969, after he had retired as a player and was about to start managing the Washington Senators (I had no idea they were still around in 1969). Since I finished the book I have done some Googling and found some unsavory info about Williams' cryogenically frozen head, which I won't go into here.

I am currently reading She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, which I also found at Sarah's library. I picked it because I listened to the book on tape of I Know This Much Is True (also by Lamb), and I loved it. I have since discovered that I may have listened to this one also, but I barely remember it, so it will still be a surprise. I stopped listening to books on tape when I started getting into podcasts a few years ago, so therefore I read less, if you count that as reading (I do).