Posted on 05/27/2023 10:53:29 AM PDT by Signalman
Ted Williams' dramatic final home run! Last game, last at bat. The original film September 28, 1960.
bkmk
Imagine if his career wasn’t interrupted by WWII and Korea?
“Teddy Ballgame” left baseball in 1942, after earning the Major League Baseball Triple Crown, to join the United States Navy Reserve during World War II. He went on active duty in 1943, then was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps as a Naval Aviator in 1944.
Williams returned to baseball in 1946 and picked up right where he left off, earning the American League MVP award. He won the Triple Crown again in 1947, then earned his second MVP award in 1949.
Fourteen months after being promoted to captain in the Marine Corps in 1952, Williams was called back to the military to serve during the Korean War. Williams flew 39 missions with the Third Marine Air Wing, 223rd Squadron with his first combat mission taking place on Feb. 16, 1953.
Capt. Williams was hit by North Korean forces during the mission and safely crash landed, walking away with only a sprained ankle. The next day, he flew again and took enemy fire over Chinnampo. Thirty-seven missions later, a bout with pneumonia and an inner ear problem led to Williams leaving the Marines in 1953.
During his time as captain of the Marine Corps, Williams earned a number of prestigious awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, three Air Medals for Aerial Flight Operations, Navy Unit commendation, American and Asian Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and more.
After returning from the Korean War, Williams went on to enjoy seven more seasons in the majors and was an All-Star for each of them. He holds the all-time record for career on-base percentage (.452) to this day, and no one else has been able to hit .400 or above since he hit .406 in 1941.
I remember baseball. It was awesome.
I just watched this again the other day.
When It Was A Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzwypfdCvBA
I think you gotta figure 150-160 more career home runs. That would have put him around 675 for his career. He would have made a run at Babe Ruth. Of course, no one will ever know. He always was an American first, baseball player second.
Thanks!
A Real Man!
I was actually watching this game. Quite a way to end a career. Wonder if the pitcher threw him a fat one? In 1961, I also saw Joan Joyce strike him out at Municipal Stadium in Waterbury, Ct during a Jimmy Piersall night charity event. I was standing behind the back stop.
I mean a lot of ballplayers served with distinction during WWII, but how many actually went to Korea after all that?
Still is. The game has always been better than the people who play it, or the owners who present it. Watch the games, ignore the BS.
The Yankee second baseman, Jerry Coleman gave up years of baseball also. Never complained.
From Wikipedia:
“Coleman served as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and the Korean War, flying combat missions with the VMSB-341 Torrid Turtles (WWII) and VMA-323 Death Rattlers (Korea) in both wars.”
These guys were marvelous men.
Good thing they never got to see what this country has become.
In Korea, Ted was John Glenn’s wingman.
He’d sometimes go up to the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, Canada to fly fish.
My dad’s mother’s family was from Miramichi, NB.
My dad and I would go up there just about every year to visit family and also to fish the Miramichi River ourselves. I was more of a spectator than a fly fisherman at my young age....LOL..but it was still a lot of fun.
Then, one day, we bumped into Ted Williams, by chance, out on the river fly fishing.
I was only about 8-9 years old at the time. I’ll never forget shaking hands with him.
He was bigger than life to me at that young age.
bkmk
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