Still a gangly teenager when he stepped into a Boston Red Sox uniform in 1939, Williams’s boisterous personality and penchant for towering home runs earned him adoring admirers and venomous critics. In 1941, the entire country followed Williams's stunning .406 season, a record that has not been touched in over six decades. Then at the pinnacle of his prime, Williams left Boston to train and serve as a fighter pilot in World War II, missing three full years of baseball, making his achievements all the more remarkable.
Ted Willams's personal life was equally colorful. His attraction to women (and their attraction to him) was a constant. He was married and divorced three times and he fathered two daughters and a son. He was one of corporate America's first modern spokesmen, and he remained, nearly into his eighties, a fiercely devoted fisherman. With his son, John Henry Williams, he devoted his final years to the sports memorabilia business, even as illness overtook him. And in death, controversy and public outcry followed Williams and the disagreements between his children over the decision to have his body preserved for future resuscitation in a cryonics facility—a fate, many argue, Williams never wanted.
With unmatched verve and passion, and drawing upon hundreds of interviews, acclaimed best-selling author Leigh Montville brings to life Ted Williams's superb triumphs, lonely tragedies, and intensely colorful personality, in a biography that is fitting of an American hero and legend.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 13, 2004 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780385507493
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780385507493
- File size: 646 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from March 15, 2004
Montville, who also penned the bestselling bio about racer Dale Earnhart (The Altar of Speed
), covers all of Williams's heroic achievements—a Hall of Fame baseball career, two tours of duty as a Marine fighter pilot, an unmatched thirst for the thrill of the outdoors. But thanks to the author's ability to track down new sources of information, Montville presents a more nuanced portrayal of the baseball star than many previous biographies. The Kid, as Williams was known, is brought to life with portraits supplied from the people who made up Williams's very compartmentalized life. Distinct recollections of his former teammates, fishing buddies, former lovers, caretakers, family members and brothers in arms coupled with Montville's ability to display each memory in its own context gives readers an extraordinary glimpse into Williams's complex psyche. Though he admits to worshipping Williams as a youth, Montville's crisp prose holds nothing back when it comes to exposing Williams's many flaws, his heartbreaking final years and the controversy surrounding his death. Relying on his years as a sports writer, Montville is also able to subtly shift the tone of the book to fit Williams's personality as he evolved from an energetic youth to a cantankerous star, from America's bigger-than-life legend to a bedridden invalid. Sure, Teddy Ballgame was an American icon, but Montville's ability to show the darker and lighter human sides of Williams is a pretty remarkable achievement in its own right. -
Library Journal
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Booklist
March 1, 2004
The late, great baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams was always a lightning rod, igniting controversy in his wake, even after his death, as those who have followed the intrafamily battle regarding the disposition of his remains can attest. Montville, whose resume includes stints as a " Boston Globe" columnist and senior writer for " Sports Illustrated," offers a warts-and-all portrait of the Red Sox star but also shows Williams' wit, empathy, intelligence, uncommon loyalty to those he called friends, and unswerving commitment to excellence (in hitting, fishing, hunting, and piloting). Exploring the many aspects of this complex sports icon through first-person interviews, newspaper accounts, magazine articles, and other print sources, Montville shows Williams lashing out at fans and battling the Boston press, but he also recounts the off-the-field triumphs: the "hero" in the subtitle stems not so much from Williams' baseball exploits as from his two stints as a marine pilot, one in World War II, the other in Korea. Ted Williams would have been a difficult man to befriend, but on the basis of Montville's work and David Halberstam's " Teammates" [BKL Mr 15 03], it appears that the effort was usually dwarfed by the reward of being in The Kid's inner circle. Expect this evenhanded reassessment to draw the kind of attention given to Jane Leavy's " Sandy Koufax" (2002).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.) -
Library Journal
February 1, 2004
After a year of ugly family squabbling and gruesome revelations about the sad fate of Williams's corpse in a Florida cryogenics lab, baseball fans need a restorative work that shifts the focus back to the life and accomplishments of the last .400 hitter. As Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated writer Montville points out, not only was Ted arguably baseball's greatest hitter, his batting achievements came in spite of missing some five years of his career owing to serving in two wars as a fighter pilot. For all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/03.]Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
Languages
- English
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