The Teammates by David Halberstam

The Teammates by David Halberstam

Author:David Halberstam [HALBERSTAM, DAVID]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation / Baseball / History
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2003-05-14T00:00:00+00:00


TED WILLIAMS, BOBBY DOERR, AND A NEIGHBOR IN FRONT OF WILLIAMS’ CHILDHOOD HOME, SAN DIEGO, CIRCA 1938–39

TED WILLIAMS, JOHN PESKY, AND DOMINIC DIMAGGIO

The idea of Ted Williams, frail, confined to a wheelchair, dying, was completely alien to his three old teammates. What they remembered about the man was his sheer animal energy, always just barely under the surface. When he was a young ballplayer he could hardly wait to get to the ballpark in the morning to take batting practice. What was it, Bobby had often wondered, that made him so nervous and impatient, so edgy in normal situations, and so cool in difficult, tense, or dangerous ones? Even when he was fishing, which probably relaxed him as much as anything, he had that uncontrollable drive, the need to be the best. When you fished with him you had to get out on the water early; if you dawdled and lost time, a huge fish that otherwise might have been caught might swim off to distant waters.

Bobby remembered scene after scene of that energy and that impatience. When they were with the Padres, there had been a scene at a local diner. Bobby was seated at a booth with some teammates when Ted came in, went to the counter, and slapped some money down—he was simply pulsating with energy, Bobby recalled—telling the poor, overworked waitress to hurry: He was in a great rush, there was a train to catch. He was in a rush, Doerr thought later, but not to catch a train. He was in a rush to be great. (One of their coaches, Doerr remembered, was a veteran named Eddie Mulligan, who had played in the big leagues with the Cubs, White Sox, and Pirates. Mulligan was greatly amused by Williams’ frenetic manner, and would say of him, “What have we got here? We’ve got a young man who’s in a great hurry to go nowhere.”)

Ted was, the other three teammates decided, always a big kid. You had to accept him like that—with all the pluses and minuses that came with it. When he was generous there was no one more generous, and when he was petulant there was no one more petulant, and sometimes he was both within a few seconds. Once in the mid-1950s, Pedro Ramos, then a young pitcher with Washington, struck Ted out, which was a very big moment for Ramos. He rolled the ball into the dugout to save, and later, after the game, the Cuban right-hander ventured into the Boston dugout with the ball and asked Ted to sign it. Mel Parnell was watching and had expected an immediate explosion, Ted being asked to sign a ball he had struck out on, and he was not disappointed. Soon there was a rising bellow of blasphemy from Williams, and then he had looked over and seen Ramos, a kid of 20 or 21, terribly close to tears now. Suddenly Ted had softened and said, “Oh, all right, give me the goddamn ball,” and had signed it.



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