RIP.
As a life-long Red Sox fan..back in the 50’s when I was a youngster, and first discovered the joys of baseball statistics, I’d spend hours trying to extrapolate what Ted Williams’ career HRs and RBIs would have been had he not lost 4 years to military service, AND had he played in the old, original Yankee Stadium, with its close in right field porch.
I wonder if he was in the same unit as "Tail-gunner" Joe McCarthy?
Thanks for your service in both WWII and the Korean War Jerry Coleman.
RIP.
Best stat was surviving over 200 combat missions in 2 wars!
I looked up his career statistics, and they were far from those of a legend. In his nine years with the Damn Yankees, he hit .263 with a grand total of 16 home runs. In only four of those years did he play in at least 100 games, so he was either injured or a bench warmer for a good part of his playing career.
No one in his right mind would put him in the Hall of Fame as a broadcaster, but apparently there are a bunch of fools who did. (It would be comparable to giving Yasser Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize). Listening to him do play-by-play on the radio was painful as sitting on a dentist's chair. You didn't know what was going on much of the time because he mangled his descriptions by his inability to get the appropriate words out of his mouth, and is malapropos were legendary.
Coleman was a war hero, and I'll give him credit where credit is due. But as a major league player, he was mediocre, and as a baseball broadcaster, incompetent.