Ted Williams
On this date in 1918, baseball's Hitter of the Century, Ted Williams,
was born in San Diego. The street evangelism of his mother, who worked
for the Salvation Army and was known as "Salvation May," embarrassed Ted
as he was growing up. He was dubbed "The Kid" when he started with the
Red Sox as a 20-year-old rookie in 1939. His record-breaking career was
interrupted twice by service in World War II and the Korean War, during
which he safely crash-landed a burning plane in 1953. He was a decorated
fighter pilot who received the Medal of Freedom in 1991. "The Splendid
Splinter" won American League's Most Valuable Player Award in 1946 and
1949. Williams' career accomplishments include a .406 season in 1941,
two Triple Crowns, two MVPs, six American League batting championships,
521 home runs, a lifetime average of .344, and 17 All-Star Game
selections. Williams ended his career at age 42 by hitting a home run at
Fenway Park. Williams had the record for career on-base percentage
(.483). He was the last major league baseball player to hit .400. After
enduring a series of strokes, congestive heart failure and 9-hour heart
surgery in 2001, Williams died at age 83. After the laudatory sports
tributes came news stories in which two of his children disclosed
Williams' nonreligious views, also revealing that their father had
signed a pact with them to be frozen after death and kept in
"biostasis." Williams' children told Reuters on July 25, 2002: “Our
father was not a religious man. The faith that many people place in god,
we place in science and other human endeavors." D. 2002.
“No one could throw a fast ball past me. God could come down from heaven, and HE couldn’t throw it past me.”
— Ted Williams (quoted in The Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstam, 1989)
Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor (FFRF)
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