“The greatest hitter who ever lived” gave Claudia Williams a batting clinic that spanned two decades.
The only surviving child of Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams has emerged as a caretaker of his magnificent and complicated legacy. She, better than anyone else, can speculate with credibility on what her dad would think of Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz matching Williams’ career record of 521 home runs.
Ortiz hit the milestone home run Friday night at Fenway Park during an 8-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
“I see a lot of things in David Ortiz that I know my dad would have just loved,” Williams told Bleacher Report the day after she participated in a ceremony that retired Wade Boggs’ No. 26 in Boston. “Congratulations to him. I think it’s awesome.”
Being a child of Ted Williams, Claudia Williams wrote in Ted Williams, My Father: A Memoir, presented a tidal wave of challenges. They were the result of her parents’ divorce, Williams’ drive for perfection in everything and everyone, a volcanic temper and intense, profanity-filled outbursts at those closest to him. It also gave her unmatched insight into Williams’ personality, character and, eventually, unfettered access to his brilliance when it came to hitting baseballs and catching fish.
“People don’t realize it, but the daughter of Ted Williams watches swings. He’s got a great game. He’s got a great swing,” Claudia Williams, 44, told B/R when asked about Ortiz. “My own father taught me the importance of getting ahead of your hands and swinging up. He takes a nice, wide stance. My dad would describe him as being ‘stronger than an ox.’
“He’s got arms on him like Goliath. He’s got a little bit of an upswing. And I like the way he cocks his hips and he puts that power through his midcore. He’s a power hitter through and through. We see that every time he hits a home run. They don’t just go over the wall, they go way over the wall. Beautiful swing. Beautiful depth. Great strength.”
Ortiz also tied Hall of Famers Frank Thomas and Willie McCovey with home run No. 521. When he spoke one-on-one to B/R prior to hitting his 500th home run in St. Petersburg, Florida, last September, Ortiz deferentially brushed off any comparisons to Williams as “crazy talk,” noting Williams’ military service in two wars that would cost him 727 games over five seasons.
“Historically, you know how great Mr. Ted Williams was. It’s wonderful talking about the greatest hitters of the game and your name being mentioned with them,” Ortiz added after Friday’s game.
After his milestone 500th home run, he spoke of Williams and others in the 500-home run club as players whom he could only watch “in cartoons” as a child. “The whole world knows it’s not easy to get,” he added.
Claudia Williams concurs. “If you hit over 500 home runs, you’re doing something right,” she said. “There’s a ton of arguments out there. This is happening this season, it didn’t happen then. It’s not like [it] was then. The pitchers are this or that. I don’t care what people say.”
In 2003, Ortiz and Ramirez tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during a pilot testing program. In 2009, the New York Times reported the results, which were supposed to be anonymous. Ortiz continues to deny knowingly using any banned substances.
He told Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe in March 2015 it would be “unfair” if anyone denied him a Hall of Fame vote because of the 2003 positive. “I was using what everybody was using at the time,” he added. When asked about the PED results by B/R in 2015, Ortiz deferred by saying, “I only want to focus on the positive.”
The Kid vs. Big Papi
The “Ortiz vs. Williams” debate, for as much as it does exist, is mainly drawn upon generational guidelines. For those who were either old enough to see Williams play (he retired in 1960 and died at age 83 in 2002) or grew up in a household where he was idolized (this author included), his place as the first among equals on the Red Sox Mt. Rushmore is unquestioned. For many who grew up in a post-2004 world, they saw Ortiz pile up World Series rings before ever hearing of Williams’ baseball, fishing and military exploits.
Among those in Williams’ corner: Red Sox Hall of Fame outfielder Carl Yastrzemski. He replaced Williams in left field in 1961. When asked who was better, Williams or Ortiz, Yaz was brief. “It’s got to be Ted,“ he told Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy in May. “I mean, he was the greatest hitter who ever lived. And he missed all those years serving his country in two wars.“
Yaz is joined on the Williams side of the ledger by Gordon Edes, the Red Sox historian who covered the team over 18 seasons for the Boston Globe and ESPN.
“Baseball lends itself to comparing stars from different eras much better than, say, basketball, where no one would dare suggest George Mikan could play with LeBron James. Baseball differs in that we can fairly debate the relative merits of [Babe] Ruth, [Hank] Aaron and [Barry] Bonds, say, while of course noting the differences in the environments in which they played,” Edes told B/R via email.
“It’s reasonable to discuss Ortiz relative to Ted Williams, and the fact they played different positions hardly matters, given that the comparison revolves exclusively on their hitting,” Edes continued. “The ‘debate,’ such as it is, is a short one: ‘Mr. Williams,’ as Ortiz calls him, dwarfs anyone else who ever played for the Red Sox as a hitter. Ted is the all-time franchise leader in the alphabet soup of BA, OBP, SGP and OPS, as well as the team’s all-time leader in home runs.”
In addition to being the last hitter to bat over .400 (.406 in 1941), Williams produced the two highest season batting averages in Red Sox history. Among the other categories in which he dominates, as Edes noted, he posted the top nine seasons in OBP in Red Sox history, five of the top seasons in SGP and eight of the top 10 seasons in walks.
“The chasm between Ted and runner-up is large, but Ortiz has certainly thrust himself into a favored spot relative to Carl Yastrzemski and Wade Boggs, with Jim Rice and maybe Manny [Ramirez] another rung below,” Edes wrote.
On the day he turned 40 last November, Ortiz announced he would retire after the 2016 season. Ortiz reported to Red Sox camp this spring considerably leaner than he was in 2015. Whatever he did in the offseason has worked. Thus far, he’s making a bid for league MVP. In his first 59 games this season, Ortiz slammed 17 home runs. drove in 59 runs, and led the American League with 29 doubles, a .423 on-base percentage, .715 slugging percentage and a stat-nerd-baffling 1.138 OPS.
Ortiz remains on pace for arguably the greatest offensive season in big-league history for any ballplayer over 40.
Williams won the 1957 AL batting title at age 39, hitting .388 with 38 home runs, 87 RBI and a haughty 1.257 OPS. A year later, he became the oldest player ever to win a batting crown at 40 with a .328 average and 1.042 OPS. Williams slashed .316/.451./645 with 27 HRs in his final season of 1960 at age 42.
A lifelong Red Sox fan, Dave McCarthy, 63, was a New Hampshire State Police officer for more than 25 years and worked details for top state politicians and visiting past presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. That job eventually led to a relationship with Williams and a longtime spot as Williams’ personal security man. McCarthy is now the executive director of the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame, housed inside Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
“Bush Senior almost fell down the stairs in a rush to meet him in New Hampshire,” McCarthy told B/R. The two had met during flight training school when they were both in the Navy in World War II. “Of all the presidents and people I’ve met, none of them had the effect on people as Ted Williams did. It’s as if baseball makes everyone an eight-year-old kid. Even Matt Damon couldn’t believe it when I introduced him to Ted.
“Ted would have loved to see David tie and break his 521 mark. He would be brief and praise him,” McCarthy added. “Ted would always defend the new players. When it appeared that Nomar [Garciaparra] was going to [be] the patriarch of Boston, he loved the kid.”
Williams campaigned for Bush in New Hampshire during the 1988 GOP primary campaign, drawing huge crowds and helping the then-vice president capture a pivotal state victory.
‘Boston’s Mr. October’
Ortiz, who took an infamous selfie with President Obama at the White House in 2014, has cast a similar spell over Boston thanks mainly to his postseason fireworks and Broadway-like October timing. His postseason slash line of .409/.553/.962 is buttressed by 17 home runs and 60 RBI in 295 at-bats. In 2013, Ortiz captured World Series MVP honors with a .688 average and a Thor-like .760/1.188/1.948 slash line.
His postseason home runs are the stuff of schoolchild legend across New England.
There was his walk-off, 10th-inning blast off Jarrod Washburn that capped Boston’s three-game sweep of the Anaheim Angels in the 2004 American League Division Series.
There was Big Papi’s Game 4, 12th-inning big fly against the New York Yankees in 2004 that provided a rocket boost for Boston’s historic comeback in the American League Championship Series.
And, of course, there was that grand slam against the Detroit Tigers in Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS that not only tied the game 5-5, but also sent Torii Hunter sprawling over the wall and turned Boston bullpen cop Steve Horgan into a local celebrity.
For Ted Williams, there were no postseason heroics. He hit .200 in his lone World Series appearance in 1946. He was nursing a bruised elbow suffered in a pre-World Series tuneup game. In those seven games against St. Louis, he went 5-for-25 with five strikeouts, one RBI and no home runs. “And I did poorly, and I don’t know why today,” he told the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.
“The biggest way Ortiz’s career impacted the Sox differently than Ted’s is the team’s success on the field,” explained Edes, who called Ortiz “Boston’s Mr. October.” Ortiz has a .455 career average and three home runs in his 14 World Series games. “His postseason play offers a powerful supporting argument to his claim that he belongs in Cooperstown,” Edes wrote.
Williams and the Red Sox rolled to the World Series with 104 wins as the American League champions in 1946 when baseball was back at its pre-war strength. Until 1969, the American and National Leagues each sent one team to the World Series. That was baseball’s entire postseason.
To see how Williams could have benefited from the playoff expansion that players like Ortiz enjoyed in the post-wild-card era, B/R examined the final American League standings during years in which Williams’ play was not impacted by military service.
Splitting the then eight-team American League geographically into Eastern and Western divisions and adding just one wild card in comparison to the two of 2016, Williams and the Red Sox would have reached the postseason nine more times in his career. Those seasons would have included 1948 and ’49.
The 96-win Red Sox lost 8-3 to the Cleveland Indians in a one-game playoff in 1948. In 1949, the Red Sox again won 96 games, and again fell one game short of the World Series—losing the pennant to the Yankees in the final weekend of the season.
Beat the Press
Ortiz and Williams have much in common.
Both Ortiz and Williams played in Minnesota before coming to Boston. Williams starred for the minor league Minneapolis Millers before joining the Red Sox as a rookie in 1939, while Ortiz was signed by the Red Sox in 2003 as a free agent after being released by the Minnesota Twins.
They share Hispanic heritage, Ortiz was born in the Dominican Republic, while Williams’ mother was Mexican-American. Both showered the right field bleachers in Fenway Park with home runs from the left side of the plate, they both committed a tremendous amount of their time and treasure to charitable endeavors for children and, at their core, they desired the love and adoration of the masses.
“Williams’ relationship with the fans and media experienced far more ups and downs than Ortiz, who generally has received favorable press,” Edes said. The harshest critiques of Ortiz have been centered around the lingering question of PED usage, early-season slumps (not an issue this year) and flare-ups about his contract situation that seemed to become an annual spring training ritual.
Ortiz’s smile and benevolence have become defining traits. “I just want to make everyone happy,” Ortiz told B/R before he hit No. 500 last September. “You’re not always going to make everyone happy. A lot of people who follow your career and are on the positive side, that’s all you’ve got to care about.”
Ted Williams, who was born in San Diego in 1918, battled with the press and negative fans throughout most of his career, taking much of the criticism on a personal level.
As Claudia Williams notes in her book:
He absolutely fell victim to the fickle love of the crowd and the criticism of the press. … Expectations were high, and in only his second year in the major leagues some fans and the press began to ride him for disappointing them—they wanted more—the start of what would be a career-long battle. Some players might have shrugged it off, but Dad was too driven, too intensely focused on being the best and wanting to impress. When he lashed out at sportswriters, he earned new nicknames like ‘Terrible Ted’ and the ‘Problem Child.’ Even when he hit a home run and the whole crowd cheered, he was still angry with them for criticizing him and refused to tip his cap as he rounded the bases. When he was rejected, it angered him, hurt his feelings, but it also made him even more determined to prove them wrong. … ‘The Kid’ emerged. The way he verbalized as an adult was a mix of playground expressions and childlike wonderment, beaten and aged with rough-guy sarcasm and dugout swearing. … It’s as if his life was played out on a big playground. Dad hated the press because they were his punishers, the bullies on his playground, and, as he would put it, ‘They were always trying to blow things out of proportion, stir things up, and rip you.’ The knights of the keyboard took control and manipulated a lot of Dad’s career just by choosing what they did or didn’t write about.
To wit, Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in 1942 and 1947 and failed to win the MVP award (as chosen by the writers) both times.
“No wonder Dad held a grudge against the press for his entire life,” Claudia Williams added.
The fans, too, felt his wrath. The “Splendid Spitter” expectorated toward the fans in Boston’s left field on Aug. 7, 1956. He had dropped a fly ball hit by Mickey Mantle in the 11th inning that led to two runs and was booed for his efforts. Williams was fined $5,000 (5 percent of his salary) but was unrepentant. “I’m not a bit sorry for what I did,” Williams said at the time. “I was right and I’d spit again at the same fans who booed me today. Some of them are the worst in the world. Nobody’s going to stop me from spitting.”
On the flip side, when encouraged by the crowd, Williams was at his best. He wowed the Boston crowd with his “Old-Timers Day“ fielding performance in 1982 and would eventually tip his hat to the Fenway crowd on “Ted Williams Day” in 1991. By the time he made his storybook appearance at the 1999 All-Star Game in Boston, Williams had been fully embraced by the citizenry of Red Sox Nation as their Founding Father.
Claudia Williams discussed the change in her father’s demeanor toward the public in the later years of his life in her book, as well:
Even at death’s door during his last public appearance, Dad was able to acknowledge the crowd when they stood and applauded for him. He was always trying to make up for some shortcoming the press had written about or make up for a poor performance on the field. What I believe made Ted Williams great at home plate was his ability to take all his anger, all his hurt, and channel it with supreme discipline and control right into his wrists, the grip, the bat, the precise connection with the ball, blasting it exactly where he wanted it to go, shoving it right down the throats of sportswriters.
Both Claudia Williams and McCarthy said Williams spoke without any filters of what would be considered “political correctness” today. “My dad was brutally honest and sincere. That was the thing I admired the most about him. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind,” Claudia Williams told B/R.
It was that sense of speaking out against what he saw as injustice that led Williams to lobby for the inclusion of “great Negro ballplayers” like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige into Baseball’s Hall of Fame during his 1966 Cooperstown induction speech.
McCarthy said Williams didn’t have the benefit of a PR coach or someone who might have counseled him to temper his remarks to avoid public backlash.
“Ted grew up in a tough life. He had a heart a mile long. He was a perfectionist working on his craft. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You had guys like ‘Colonel’ Dave Egan who would rip him. Ted would lash out and tell them what he thought. That led to a lot misunderstandings and a lot of slanted stories. Ted was an emotional kid. And the press loved it. It made for a great story. The press won every time,” McCarthy said.
“Ted just couldn’t understand. He poured his heart out to this guy and he rips him. It hurt him.”
The Right Stuff of Greatness
Williams and Yankees second baseman Jerry Coleman were among a handful of baseball players who served in both World War II and the Korean War.
McCarthy said that historic gap makes any comparison between Ortiz and Williams nearly impossible. “Two completely different eras. How do you compete with a generation that went to war? It’s tough. One of them was brought up in a really unique time in this country when there was a world war. He, along with so many others like Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller, lost prime years of their career when World War II started. That’s the stuff legends are made of country-wide, not just in sports.”
Williams enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve’s aviation program on May 22, 1942, after, Edes noted, he was given a draft exemption—3-A as the sole support of his mother. It was later changed to 1-A, but Williams appealed and had it reversed to 3-A. That stirred a public uproar. Williams spent his service time in World War II stateside training naval pilots, including the aforementioned George H.W. Bush.
Williams fiercely resisted being sent back into active duty with the Marines in Korea. His 39-0 record as a Marine Corps pilot remains the most durable mark in Boston sports history. He flew 39 ground-attack combat missions during the Korean War as a U.S. Marine Corps pilot in his F9F Grumman Panther. He and his squadron mates risked life, death and capture at the hands of the Chinese and/or North Koreans 39 times. He returned safely, if not always fully intact, all 39 times. Captain Williams’ plane crash-landed on his initial mission in 1953 after being hit by ground fire.
“Williams’ military service did not impact evaluations of him as a player, but of course enhanced his image as a larger-than-life figure, a Duke Wayne in flannels,” Edes wrote.
Ortiz enhanced his image as a larger-than-life figure with his succinct speech and “F-bomb” at Fenway Park on April 20, 2013. It was the first Red Sox home game following the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt that shut down the city and several surrounding suburbs.
“This is our f–king city. And nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong,” Ortiz said.
Claudia Williams said her father would have approved of what Ortiz did and would have offered similar sentiments toward those who had bombed Boston had he been given the same opportunity. “I’ll take the Fifth,” she said when asked if Ted Williams would have used the same language.
She does have one issue with Big Papi. “The only think I spank Ortiz on is him saying that Dad’s home run (a 502-foot blast at Fenway Park in 1946 now marked by a red seat 37 rows up in right-field bleachers) didn’t go as far as it did. I bet you anything my Dad did that.”
When asked about it in 2015 by the Boston Globe, Ortiz said with some laughter: “The red seat? Cough — bull — cough … I went up there and sat there one time. That’s far, brother.”
Ortiz’s torrid start has kept fans, players and media types asking if he will actually walk away after this season. But Ortiz told WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford on May 20 he is “100 percent sure” 2016 will be the final year of his career.
When it came time for Williams to retire, McCarthy said Williams told him the decision was easy. “I asked him one night how difficult it was for him to take off the Red Sox uniform for the final time. His answer was simple. ‘I’ve had enough, I was ready to do something else. I’m glad I got out when I got out. It was enough.'”
By the way, Williams homered in his final at-bat.
One more challenge for Ortiz.
Bill Speros is an award-winning journalist who covers baseball for Bleacher Report. He met Ted Williams when he was 14 and still has the autographed ball to prove it. He tweets at @BillSperos and @RealOBF.
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