As a very young kid, I watched Ted Williams play from 1947 to 1960. I was an ardent fan of Ted. Even though, I was an avid Yankees fan. This article you referred us to is "unreadable".
It is typical of the miserable media in Boston that Williams was subject to for most of his career.
Ted Williams could have been "
There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived." if he hadn't been so stubborn about not slicing hits into Left Field when the pitch was on the outside corner.
Regarding his statistics, if you do the math, Ted's career Batting Average increases to approx. .380 (well above Cobb's career BA).
Back in the 1980's, I was fortunate to meet Ted on two occasions. First time was at the Philly Show in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He was very friendly, and we were Talkin" BaseBall for
about 30 minutes.
The 2nd instance was in Cooperstown on HOF weekend (circa 1987). He remembered me as we were approaching each other on Main Street. We stopped and talked for about an hour.
I told Ted when I was a kid, I used to root for him to hit a HR in Yankee Stadium's RF upper deck (which he did quite a number of times). Ted then said..."
I don't understand ?"....since
I had previously told him I was a Yankees fan. I replied..."
It didn't matter Ted, I knew the Yankees would win the Pennant, anyhow." Ted cracked-up laughing for a moment. Then Ted's
expression became very serious, and he said..."
If your neighbor, Phil Rizzuto, was playing for the Red Sox, we would have been the AL Champions all those years."...Ted considered Phil
Rizzuto's all-around ability (Hitting, Fielding, etc.) as being about the best in the game. He elucidated on this for about 10 minutes. Incidentally, our home was just 2-blocks away from
the Rizzuto residence in Hillside, NJ.
Then, I engaged him into talking about his BaseBall cards, and he told me really interesting background story regarding the 1959 FLEER set of him (which I will leave for another day).
TED Z
T206 Reference
.