Ted Williams Farewell: I Was There
It was fifty years ago, September 1960. I was there. My father brought me. I was twelve years old. It has lived and played over and over in my head, and maybe that’s why even though all these years have passed it still feels close; not like yesterday, but close. May I share it with you?
I was a Southie kid; the D Street projects, The Hoar School, the Bigelow and Saint Augustine’s. The Twin’s Delicatessen was on the corner and in summer the radio was always turned up for a Sox game. I was in there buying candy one day when the announcer excitedly called a Williams shot that landed twenty rows up in the bleachers. Everyone in the little store cheered. When I walked out into the sunshine I had penny candy in my hand and a Ted Williams home run in my happy heart.
Then my father got on the police force and we moved to West Roxbury and Saint Theresa’s. I played Little League ball for the Kiwanis Red Sox, pitching and third base. I was 4 and O with an ERA of .056. That will be on my grave stone.
I lived for baseball, and my father, whose name was Frank O’Rourke, brought me to Fenway Park many times in the late fifties. We sat in the right field bleachers, sometimes with his brother Joe, shirts off in the sun, 50 cent tickets, some twi-night doubleheaders. I remember they argued pitchers a lot. We sat behind Jackie Jensen. A night game was special, a little unreal; something ghostly and romantic then about baseball and the diamond itself under the stars, under the lights. There were New England days at Fenway, i.e. Vermont Day, Maine Day, and fans would bus in from those states. There were days for the Sox players, too, and I watched Frank Malzone on his day hit a shot down the third base line for a double. It has been said that there is no finer sound on earth like the crack of a bat meeting a baseball squarely and sending it screaming into the air.
Curt Gowdy was the main Sox announcer. My father always liked him. And there was an attractive woman, Irene Harrington I believe was her name, who did radio and TV commercials for a beer company, maybe Carling Black Label. She was up in the announcer’s box above home plate the day that I happened to have brought a pair of binoculars. I surveyed the broadcast booth, and there she was, training her binoculars on me. We waved to each other and I was the happiest boy in the bleachers.
My father always insisted that we go early and watch both teams at batting practice. It was captivating to watch superb athletes loosening up and often clowning a little, as well. One day Jimmy Piersall was in right, in front of the Sox bullpen, catching his team mate’s flies and chasing line drives and grounders. He turned to the bullpen gate, opened it wide and then began waving his arms and pointing into it. He was looking for the hitter to put one in there and finally a ball did sail down into the bullpen and right into Piersall’s glove. He had run through the gate and made the catch. In celebration he flung his glove up high behind him where it landed about ten rows up in the bleachers. The kids that were there fought for the glove just to be the one who brought it back to him.
And there was the second game of a Sunday twi-night doubleheader, a slow game that nonetheless held that special rhythm of baseball. Fenway was perhaps half full, the sun was setting, the air was still. I caught the faint sound of someone singing and looked around the stands for the source. My father noticed my puzzlement and pointed his finger toward center field where Jimmy Piersall stood, head thrown back, singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Ted was in left and Jackie Jensen was in right, both of them pretending not to notice.
And even then, when the Yankees came to town, the excitement and anticipation went up several notches; Mantle, Maris, Berra, Ford, et al, and how the air would swim with boo’s when Casey Stengel made a trip to the mound. He was such a little figure viewed from the distance, spindly legs and all, yet he embodied so much baseball history that you couldn’t help but hope that the boo’s were good-natured and held more than a tad of respect. Stengel’s Yankee teams were filled with great athletes, wonderful to watch. I was in awe, but I have to say, from the very beginning I felt there was something sinister about those pin stripes.
I was there when Jim Bunning pitched a no-hitter against the Sox. The last batter he faced was Williams. Ted hit one and backed the right fielder up against the bullpen, but he made the catch.
My father said, “Now you can tell everyone you saw a no-hitter.”
He was a strict man, most times incapable of showing affection; a figure to be admired and loved from a distance, and feared up close. He was a WWII veteran, had fought in New Guinea, and like a lot of vets, never spoke of it. Now he was a Boston cop, and in his uniform the most intimidating guy I had ever seen. Yes, we played catch a few times and he could rifle the ball, no question. After the first session I overheard him tell my mother, “Dennis didn’t think his old man could throw.” I had found out fast enough.
He was a workout man, too, and his chosen venue was the Huntington YMCA. I was accompanying him by the time I was seven. He ran and he lifted weights. While he did the latter I sometimes found myself playing with other boys in the wrestling room, the floor covered with mats. I remember the track athlete Ralph Boston working out there, and my wrestling and playing with his son.
And there was the one Saturday when the Boston Celtics were practicing in the Y gym, because the Bruins had the Garden. I was at one end of the court trying to just reach the basket with the ball while Russell, KC, Sam and Havlicek were at the other. I was astonished by the size of Havlicek’s hands, how small the ball looked when he held it. Years later I met Mary Faherty, Red Aurbach’s longtime secretary, a good and gracious woman, who was delighted by the story.
And now September, 1960: I was in the eighth grade at Saint Theresa’s in West Roxbury. My father handed me a note I was to bring to school. It requested that I be excused the next day; I don’t remember the reason given. I knew Ted’s last game was coming up, but I did not entertain even the fantasy of my being able to go on a school day, yet here was my father making it a reality. The fact that the day dawned cool and cloudy with the occasional mist did little to tamp down my excitement. The ride to the ball park had a nervous intensity, an excitement at the prospect of what we were about to witness. And this time, instead of the bleachers, my father had purchased tickets for seats about fifteen rows up behind the Red Sox dugout. As always we were there for batting practice and saw Ted hit some pretty good shots; and I seem to remember one leaving the park, and my father saying how great it would be if Ted could hit one in the game.
My new vantage point was just the beginning of what made this day special. Down in front of the dugout the microphone stood and the dignitaries huddled together, Mayor John Collins among them, beaming away in his wheel chair, Curt Gowdy walking around greeting and chatting, and of course, Tom Yawkey, the Sox owner and the man who signed Ted. The clouds were low and seamless and the afternoon a little dark as short speeches were made. Finally Ted was in front of the microphone and he shone in his uniform beside the suits. His farewell was short and pointed; a jab at the sports writers that often antagonized him – he called them “the Knights of the Keyboard”- and then a paean to Yawkey and the Red Sox fans – “the greatest owner and the greatest fans in baseball.” And then they cleared the deck and the game with the Baltimore Orioles began.
There were just over ten thousand fans in Fenway Park that day. I’ve often speculated on why that was and I have no good answer. I have clippings from the Globe and the photographs clearly show vast swaths of empty seats, especially one picture of Ted sliding into third base. In the background the right field grandstand is barren and bleak. Surely all of Boston, all of New England knew that this towering figure was playing in his last game. Why they didn’t come I leave to others.
What I remember of the game are bits and chunks of what played out before me. And in truth, because of the grayness of the day it unfolds in my mind like an old black and white newsreel. I see him on deck, kneeling, swinging the bat. I see him rounding second base, loping like an awkward cartwheel and sliding heavily into third. I see him coming to the plate in the eighth inning, and I hear my father say, “This is it. This is going to be his last time up,” and I believe everyone in the park felt the same.
Jack Fisher was the pitcher. How many did he throw? I remember Ted swung at one and missed. What was the count then? I don’t know, but the details aren’t what this is about. Fisher threw the ball again, Ted swung again, and there was that electrifying crack and the ball headed to right center, toward the bullpen in right center field. It was no lofty, sailing home run. It never got high enough to be silhouetted in the sky. It was a line drive home run.
Now that very special moment had come, the one we dared hope for. We were on our feet, all ten thousand plus, roaring. Ted rounded the bases, head down, loping. They met him at the plate. We cheered, we clapped. He ducked down into the dugout. Minutes passed and he did not appear. I was vaguely aware of the next Sox batter standing in the box and Fisher pitching to him. But none of us were paying attention to that. We were clapping and calling out. Then the inning was over, but we were still on our feet, the entire park. Suddenly there he was again, that lope, on his way out to left field, glove in hand, the big number 9 on his back. It was revealed later that manager Mike Higgins had given him the nod to take the field again and even though Williams was aggravated he did it. Higgins was giving him the opportunity to thank the fans, to tip his cap.
Ted ran out unaware that about ten yards behind him his replacement jogged. I haven’t a clue who that was. You could look it up. When Ted reached his place in left field he turned around and saw the kid coming toward him. He put his head down and again began his trot back to the dugout. By now we had been on our feet clapping and roaring ourselves hoarse for ten minutes or more. My hands were raw; my heart was trying to leave my chest. It was then that my truly special moment arrived. There was Ted Williams chugging toward us and when he had disappeared again into the dugout I looked up at my father and saw the tears streaming down his face. I had never seen my father cry. I turned my eyes back out over the field knowing that I was in the midst of something mighty, a witness to something extraordinary all around.
The game ended with the late summer sun pushing through the clouds, making all things gold. The Sox won. My father said, “It would have been good if his homer won the game, on the last out, the way he did at the All Star game in Detroit. But this was good, just as good.” The thrill of it all was still with us in the car on the way back home. It was the closest I would ever feel to my father and it was the best thing he ever did for me.
The Globe’s headline the next day was G’Bye With A Bang, That’s Our Ted. I have a framed photograph of the last swing and I still have the score card from that last day.
The famous John Updike article ended with the intimation that Ted had decided just that day, after hitting the home run that he would not join the team finishing out the season in New York, that somehow he did not want to chance a different ending to his career. Some years later I watched an interview the TV reporter Don Gillis did with Ted and he mentioned this. Ted shook his big head in disgust and said, “Oh, that’s bullshit. I told them it was going to be my last game. I started my career in Boston and I finished it in Boston.”
When Ted died my father was in a rest home with a form of Alzheimer’s. Although he could still understand some things I decided that I wasn’t going to tell him that Ted had gone. And then two years later my father was gone. Both men are inextricably linked in my childhood memories and most of all my memory of that one day, that very special day. I was there.
Dennis O’Rourke
October 1, 2010
Copyright: Dennis O’Rourke 2010 |