Ted Williams - A True American Hero

(Ted Williams)

It is rare among baseball circles to find anyone who doesn’t agree that Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game.

Known by some as “The Kid” or “The Splendid Splinter”, the California native spent his entire career playing for the Boston Red Sox. In 19 seasons he amassed a career line of .344/.482/.634 to go along with 521 home runs and 1,839 RBIs (the final of which came in his last career at-bat at Fenway Park on September 28, 1960).

Williams also earned numerous awards during his time with the Red Sox:

• 1939 American League Rookie of the Year
• 19x All-Star (1940-42, 1946-51, 1953-1960)
• 2x American League Most Valuable Player (1946, 1949)
• 2x Triple Crown Winner (1942, 1947)
• 6x American League Batting Champion ( 1941-42, 1947-48, 1957-58)
• 4x American League Home Run Champion (1941-42, 1947, 1949)
• 4x American League RBI Champion (1939, 1942, 1947, 1949)
• Last MLB Player to Record a .400 Season (Hit .406 in 1941)
• MLB Record .482 Career On-Base Percentage
• First Ballot Hall of Fame Inductee (1966)

As impressive as Williams’ career statistics were, many are left to wonder how much more incredible his numbers would have been had he not given up three full seasons during the prime of his career (and the majority of two others in 1952-53) to serve as a fighter pilot in the United States Navy and Marines Corps.
Not long after Williams went on to own the last .400+ season in the majors in 1941, the US was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor on December 7, beginning the United States’ involvement in World War II. Williams’ was drafted into the military the following January as Class 1-A (available for unrestricted military service).

 At the time Williams was the sole dependent of his mother, and sought to change his classification to 3-A (deferred because of hardship to dependents). After initially being denied his request, Williams’ attorney was able to have the case handed over to the Presidential Board, where he was in fact reclassified as 3-A in the following days.

Ted took extreme backlash from the public regarding his reclassification, which even caused some major sponsors such as Quaker Oats to drop Williams from their advertising campaign.

However, after building up his mothers’ trust fund, Williams would indeed enlist in the Navy Reserve not long after in May of 1942, before going on active duty later that year. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps as a Naval Aviator, nearly two years after joining the reserves.

Williams would not see any combat action in his first wartime stint, spending most of the time he wasn’t flight training playing for military baseball teams.

After the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Williams was re-stationed to Pearl Harbor where he would play in an eight team baseball league alongside Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial. Some players were quoted as saying that the Service World Series between the Army and Navy was better than the World Series between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs back on home soil.

Although he would not fight in World War II, he performed exceedingly well in virtually every area of his flight training. He holds a student gunnery record that still stands today for reflexes, coordination and visual reaction time. He was so talented and enjoyed his time flying so much, he was literally forced by the Navy to leave in order to accept his 1942 Major League Triple Crown award in person.

 His fellow Red Sox teammate Johnny Pesky, who attended the same aviation training program, gave Williams overwhelming praise for his knowledge and skills as a fighter pilot:

"He mastered intricate problems in fifteen minutes which took the average cadet an hour, and half of the other cadets there were college graduates.

 “Ted could make a plane and its six 'pianos' (machine guns) play like a symphony orchestra - his reflexes, coordination, and visual reaction made him a built-in part of the machine."

In 1945, Williams would be discharged from the military and return to Boston to play for the Red Sox until he was called up from the inactive reserves in 1952 during the Korean War. After having not flown a single aircraft in eight years, Williams would head to Cherry Point, North Carolina to begin his refresher training on the newer jet aircraft being used in the war.

Williams arrived in Korea in early 1953 and would begin flying his first ever combat missions.

It would not take long for “The Kid” to find himself in danger. On February 17, 1953 he was forced to crash-land his F-9 Panther after taking small arms fire from the ground, while flying an air mission with the 33^rd Marine Air Group in Kyomipo, 15 miles south of the North Korean capital.

Afraid that ejecting would cause him to break his knee caps and end his post-military baseball career, Williams instead refused to bail out of his aircraft and crash landed it at an United States Air Force airfield called K-13, tucked just behind enemy lines.

Given to pilots for meritorious achievement while participating in sustained aerial flight operations, Williams was given the Air Medal for his actions that day (one of the many medals he would receive during his military career).

(Ted Williams Military Awards & Honors)

Ted would experience another close call a few months later in April when heavy wind would force him to lower his altitude during a raid of Chinnampo, where he was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He considered himself lucky that the reserve fuel being stored in his wings did not ignite, which allowed him to make it back to base safely.

If the stresses of engaging in aerial combat were not enough, Williams often found himself sick in Korea. He developed pneumonia and eventually an inner-ear problem that would lead to him being withdrawn from flight status and leaving the Marines in July of 1953.

Ted returned home to Boston and resumed his baseball career (due large in part to the fact he refused to eject from his aircraft back in February) basically right where he left off, despite missing time in 1954 with a broken collarbone and another month in 1955 due to a nasty divorce settlement with his wife Doris. He would hit his 400^th career home run the following season in 1956, and would lead the majors in batting average in both 1957 (.388) and 1958 (.328) at the elder baseball ages of 39 and 40.

He remained an ambassador to the game well into his later years, even going as far as calling for the recognition of Negro League players during his Hall of Fame induction speech in July of 1966.

"I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope someday the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given a chance."

For new and old generations of fans alike, few will forget the scene at Fenway Park during the 1999 All-Star game, where Ted Williams would make one of his final public appearances before passing away in 2002:

During Williams’ four year military career, he was credited with 39 combat missions (all coming during the Korean War) including his two brushes with death. When asked about his time in Korea he was quoted as saying:

“I was no hero. There were maybe seventy-five pilots in our two squadrons and 99 percent of them did a better job than I did.”

In a day and age where baseball players are making more money than any time in history, where we are used to seeing our star athletes pampered and coddled as if they are made of glass, it’s hard to imagine anything more heroic than a superstar athlete, and face of the sport, giving up prime years of his career to serve his country.

There will forever be the debate about where Williams ranks among the other great hitters in history, or where his numbers could have been had he not served his country for multiple years.

Instead of worrying about rankings or statistics, let’s remind ourselves how lucky we are to live in a country where the selfless men and women of our armed forces put their lives on the line everyday so we can enjoy some peanuts and a hot dog, and perhaps even a cold beer, while watching America’s pastime.

To all those who have served – thank you and Happy Veteran’s Day.

References:

• Linn, Ed. Hitter: The Life And Turmoils of Ted Williams. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1993.
• Bullock, Steven R. Playing for Their Nation: Baseball and the American Military during World War II. University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
• Mersky, Peter B. U.S. Marine Corps Aviation: 1912 to the Present. Annapolis, Maryland: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1983.
• Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
• "Official Ted Williams Website." Official Ted Williams Website. Green Diamond Sports, Inc, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.