![]() And so we have extended examinations of Williams’s childhood in San Diego, where he was the largely neglected child of an often-absent father and a Mexican mother whose devotion to the Salvation Army trumped her devotion to young Ted and his brother, Danny (“Ted was always ashamed of his upbringing,” Chapter 1 portentously begins) of his war service as a Marine pilot (Mr. Bradlee acknowledges that he focused away from baseball, on the elements of Williams’s life that other writers - and there have been many - have left relatively unplumbed. A work of obvious journalistic muscle and diligence, “The Kid” provides documentary evidence on every page to bolster the book’s presumption that Williams was, to use the cliché, larger than life. gains an arch strain of meaning for the book’s subtitle, which is otherwise meant, I think, not literally but sincerely. When he died at 83 on July 5, 2002, after a decade of declining health, his son arranged to have his head and body separated, frozen and preserved against the possibility of their revival in a future age, and the Bunyan-esque Williams legend had its fittingly sizable, if wacky and pathetic, conclusion.īeginning and ending “The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams,” his new, cinderblock-size biography, with strikingly precise and colorful reporting on this far-fetched episode, Ben Bradlee Jr. A sporting god, irascible yet beloved, he was a vivid and imposing figure, loudmouthed, foul-mouthed, bullying and almost pathologically self-centered, but with a deep and tender charitable streak that made him hard to fathom. Ted Williams, the Red Sox’s midcentury slugger famed for his sweet left-handed swing as well as for his tempestuous nature, was already something of a mythic colossus (especially in Boston) before the macabre events surrounding his death. Passionately researched and artfully told, this is much more than a sports story it's the sprawling saga of a talented, tenacious, tumultuous, one-of-a-kind American man.So the hero gets his head cut off on. He even uncovers gruesome tidbits about the strange aftermath of Williams’s death in 2002, when his body was taken to a cryonics facility, his head severed and then frozen inside a Tuperware-like container. Bradlee spent a decade investigating every detail of Williams’s 83 years-and beyond. admits at the start that Williams was, indeed, "my hero." Still, Bradlee never shies from dark side of the Williams myth: the insecure immigrant's son the imperfect father and husband the raging hothead, who flaunted his disdain for the press and a few teammates. Boston Globe reporter-editor Ben Bradlee Jr. ![]() What sets this exhaustive exploration apart from other Ted Williams biographies is the author's finesse at maintaining a fan's enthusiasm for his remarkable subject while confronting the warts-and-all reality of an imperfect hero. 344 batting average, who played remarkable baseball until age 40 and who reigns as the best all-around hitter in history. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.Īn Amazon Best Book of the Month, December 2013: In an age of performance enhancing drugs and a culture of wealth and deceit in professional sports, it's refreshing to revisit the feats of one of baseball’s best: the last man to hit. Bradlee's marvelous book clears the fences, too. In his final at-bat, Williams hit a home run. THE KID is biography of the highest literary order, a thrilling and honest account of a legend in all his glory and human complexity. While baseball might have been straightforward for Ted Williams, life was not. His ferocity came to define his troubled domestic life. ![]() Yet while he was a God in the batter's box, he was profoundly human once he stepped away from the plate. During his 22 years with the Boston Red Sox, Williams electrified crowds across America-and shocked them, too: His notorious clashes with the press and fans threatened his reputation. Born in 1918 in San Diego, Ted would spend most of his life disguising his Mexican heritage. He hit home runs farther than any player before him-and traveled a long way himself, as Ben Bradlee, Jr.'s grand biography reveals. ![]() Those totals would have been even higher if Williams had not left baseball for nearly five years in the prime of his career to serve as a Marine pilot in WWII and Korea. 406 in 1941 has not been topped since, and no player who has hit more than 500 home runs has a higher career batting average. Williams was the best hitter in baseball history. From acclaimed journalist Ben Bradlee Jr., comes the epic biography of Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams that baseball fans have been waiting for.
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