Author Topic: RIP Ted Williams (Read 236 times)

Animal · « **on:** July 10, 2002, 12:26:45 AM »

I dont know how I missed this two days ago, but Ted Williams, one of the greatest baseball players, and fighter pilot in both WWII and Korea, died.

For those who dont know who he was, here is his bio

http://espn.go.com/classic/obit/williams_ted_obit.html

RIP

Quote

On Feb. 19, 1953, flying low on a bombing run far above the 38th parallel, Williams' F-9 Panther was hit by small arms fire and started leaking hydraulic fluid. With his plane shaking badly (he didn't know it was also on fire), his control panel lit up with warning lights, and his radio dead, Williams followed a fellow pilot back to base, flying without hydraulics and wrestling his stick all the way.

Approaching the landing field, an on-board explosion blew off one of the wheel doors and Williams was forced to land his crippled jet at 225 miles-an-hour and on one wheel. When the F-9 finally came to a stop at the end of the runway after skidding over 2,000 feet, Williams walked away from the burning wreck as firemen hosed it down with foam. Fortunate but enraged, he reacted to nearly auguring in as if he had just popped out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth -- he yanked off his helmet and slammed it to the ground.

"Ted Williams was what John Wayne would have liked us to think he was," said sportswriter Robert Lipsyte. "Williams was so big, and handsome, and laconic, and direct, and unafraid in that uniquely American cowboy way. To me he epitomized the sense of the athlete as gunslinger."

funkedup · « **Reply #1 on:** July 10, 2002, 01:12:07 AM »

Yep the splendid splinter is gone.

Charon · « **Reply #2 on:** July 10, 2002, 09:00:14 AM »

Quote

"Ted Williams was what John Wayne would have liked us to think he was," said sportswriter Robert Lipsyte.

Exactly

Charon

midnight Target · « **Reply #3 on:** July 10, 2002, 11:12:49 AM »

I hope you all were watching when the All Star game was in Fenway a couple years back.
They had introduced the greatest living players of all time, and they were all standing around the diamond when Ted Williams was introduced last. He came riding in on a golf cart and the ceremony immediately degenerated. All of these other "Legends" started crowding around TW asking for an autograph, a picture with him, or just to say hello.
He was interviewed late in life, and the interviewer (Bob Costas I think) actually said to him "You are John Wayne". Ted Williams just said "yep".

blur · « **Reply #4 on:** July 10, 2002, 01:18:36 PM »

“After ending the half inning with a nice catch in left, a seething Williams ran to the Sox dugout, spit twice at the crowd from the top step, took a seat, then reappeared moments later for a third emphatic expectoration. He then spat his regards at the New York bench on his way to the plate, and flipped his bat in disgust after his bases-loaded walk forced in the winning run.”

“Late in the 1958 season, Williams lost his temper at Fenway again after taking a called third strike in a game against Washington and accidentally threw his bat into the stands where it bloodied the head of Cronin's 60-year-old housekeeper, Gladys Heffernan. Horrified, Williams hurried to her seat as the crowd booed the hell out him.”

That he was a class act and great with a bat can’t be denied.

Show me a hero, and I'll show you a bum.
- Pappy Boyington

Animal · « **Reply #5 on:** July 10, 2002, 07:17:57 PM »

One time for some reason he got into a baseball stadium with a rifle, and started shooting the score board for some random reason.

Another time some spectator was shouting crap, so he intentionally threw two hi speed fouls at the spectator's direction, but when he had reached two strikes, he hit a double.