Ted & Me by Dan Gutman

Author:Dan Gutman [Gutman, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Sports & Recreation, Baseball & Softball, Historical, United States, 20th Century, Biographical
ISBN: 9780062102102
Google: 4oVj2xMPs2AC
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2012-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

Ted at his locker.

We walked into the locker room, and it was filled with guys playing cards, reading letters, and smoking. In those days, they didn’t know that smoking caused cancer.

Ted walked in like he owned the place.

“Hey, Whale Belly!” he shouted to the first guy he saw. “How’s it goin’?”

He shook hands all around, calling teammates Sport or Meathead or various combinations of curse words.

“Didn’t expect to see you here today, Teddy,” a player with glasses said. “Thought you’d take the day off and coast.”

“I never coast, Dommie,” Ted replied. “I go full speed all the way.”

That was for sure. If Ted Williams had been around in the twenty-first century, he would probably have been diagnosed with ADD or hyperactivity or something. From the moment he walked into the locker room, he was in constant motion: talking non-stop, clapping guys on the back, cracking jokes. He seemed wired, edgy. I wasn’t sure if he was always like that or if he was particularly pumped up and nervous on this day. Finally, he went to put his uniform on.

I looked around, just taking it all in. The players were putting on those old-fashioned, heavy, gray flannel uniforms with buttons down the front. None of them had long hair, a beard, or a mustache. And none of them were African-American or Hispanic. It would be six years, I calculated, before Jackie Robinson would break the color barrier.

The uniforms didn’t have the players’ names on the backs, but names were written on masking tape above each locker. I noticed Bobby Doerr, who is a Hall of Famer most people don’t know about. Jimmy Foxx was another Hall of Fame name I recognized. He was a really big guy, with huge arms. No wonder Ted was doing pushups in the hotel room the night before.

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