ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609160081
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GLEN GISH
IT WAS one of those chilly late March days that only someone who grew up in Roanoke would be able to appreciate. On this particular March day there was a big "happening" in town. Our own Roanoke Red Sox, a Class B farm club for the big boys in Boston, was meeting the parent club in an exhibition game made possible by the Boston team's long train trip home from spring training. It was 1946.
Several friends of mine and I had played hooky from Stonewall Jackson Junior High School and were making our usual attempts at slipping into whatever game was being played at the Roanoke ballpark. We did not slip into the games with any criminal intent. It was simply a matter of economics: We didn't have any money!
In fact, the Roanoke Red Sox had formed a group for kids who were 18 years old, or younger, to assist us financially. Members of the Knothole Gang were issued a card that allowed them to attend games for 5 cents. I had a card but I had never used it because I never had the necessary nickel.
I feel that on this particular day I would have found some way to come up with the needed nickel. However, the owners of the Roanoke Red Sox were aware of the importance of this event and had suspended the Knothole privileges for the day. If you wanted to see the big game, you were going to have to come up with the full price of admission.
What concerned my friends and myself more than the suspended privileges was the beefed-up security at the ballpark. There had been few times that we had not been successful in slipping into the games in the past, but today was offering monumental challenges. Every time one of us would scale one of the wooden fences to peep over the top, a security person would curse us and chase us away. These big, burly guys had been chasing us for years. Though they did not know our names, they knew each of us from the many years of running after us when we had scaled a fence or had brazenly moved through a gate when a ticket-taker had turned his head. These guys absolutely hated us.
We had tried every trick we knew, but there was no possibility of slipping into the game on this day. One of the guys mentioned that we would miss the arrival of the Bosox bus if we kept trying, so we headed back up to the main entrance of Maher Field. There was already a large crowd in the area where the Boston players would enter the park. I was able to work my way up into the front row. The ticket-takers were eyeing me with contempt and were determined that I would not get by them on this day.
A strange silence and air of anticipation fell over the crowd as the bus carrying the Red Sox arrived. This would be the first time I had ever seen a big-league ballplayer in person, even though I had been a New York Yankee fan for my entire young life. In fact, I would have much preferred that the bus carry the Yankees and my beloved Joe Dimaggio. During those years, my life centered around Joltin' Joe and his performance on the field. I hated all of the other stars of the game, who were in competition with Joe for batting, home run and other such titles. One of the guys that I hated the most was on the arriving bus: Ted Williams, or the Splendid Splinter, as the Boston sportswriting corps had dubbed him. Even though the sportswriters had given him the nickname that stuck with him his entire career, they did not like him and he did not like them. The writers said that Williams was self-centered and arrogant, and I believed every word they said.
The doors of the bus opened and the players started filing out and coming up the path where fans had gathered on both sides. The fans would call out to the players and the players would smile, speak and wave to them.
I was so excited my heart was about to jump out of my mouth. The next player to step out of the bus was Dom Dimaggio, Joe's younger brother and the Red Sox center fielder. I thought to myself I probably would never get a chance to see Joltin' Joe, but seeing his kid brother is the next best thing. What an awful disappointment this turned out to be; Dimaggio was the only player who did not acknowledge the crowd at all. He walked up the path with a very stern look on his face, looking straight ahead, never glancing to the left or right.
Then Ted Williams came out of the bus. I will never forget my first impression of Williams. There was such an air about him that I had never seen before in my young life. The jaunty way he wore his baseball cap cocked on one side of his head and his tall frame were most impressive. He stood 6 feet 3 inches, but he looked 9 feet tall when he came unraveling out of the bus. Williams was very skinny; thus, the nickname "The Splendid Splinter."
Ted Williams had what I would call an indefinable quality that was very mysterious. I don't think you could call it charisma because he was not always charming in his dealings with the press and the Boston fans, but he certainly had an aura about him.
Williams left the bus and started down the path with the other players. His manner was not an overly friendly one, but he did nod his head and acknowledge the fans. By the time he got to where I was standing, I had sort of regained my composure from my previous star-struck state. After all, this guy was the enemy; he would do anything he could to beat Joe out of batting titles.
As Williams got right along the area where I was standing, I made my move. Relying on the anonymity of being a little guy in a big crowd and calling upon my cocky manner, learned well in my blue-collar neighborhood in Southeast Roanoke, I said to Williams:
"So you're the Splendid Splinter, huh? Well, you don't show me anything; you stink!"
I should have known that a pair of eyes like that man had would not miss who uttered this little gem. I have read many times that Williams may have had the best eyesight of any person who ever lived. (Take my word for it, the man's hearing was pretty good, also.) He walked back to where I was standing and stopped. Stopped was exactly what my heart had done. Williams reached down and put his arm around my shoulder and started walking me toward the gate and said,
"Want to see the game, son?"
It goes without saying that I was speechless as he led me through the gate and past my hated enemies, the ticket-takers. My friends were standing there in a state of shock. Once we were inside the gate, the Splendid Splinter patted me on the back and said,
"Enjoy the game."
For some reason I was never again able to hate Ted Williams.
Everything he did that day was not nice, though, because he tried to destroy our ballpark. He hit a triple off our scoreboard in right field that almost knocked the scoreboard into the Roanoke River, which ran behind the right-field fence. That was the hardest-hit baseball I have ever seen.
The next time I attended a Roanoke Red Sox-Boston Red Sox exhibition game at Maher Field, the conditions were quite different. The year was 1951 and Ted Williams was not present. As memory serves me, he was absent because of an injury and did not make this trip with the team. (Or this could have been when he had been called back into the Marine Air Corps during the Korean War.) I know that I was very disappointed that my new-found friend from five years before was not there.
Our beloved baseball coach at Jefferson High School, Nick Carter, had arranged with the Roanoke ballclub's management to have our team as guests of the Red Sox. I tried to act with a little more dignity than I had at the 1946 game, since I was the captain of the Jefferson team. Our team sat together in the right-field bleachers, and many of the Boston players who were not playing that day came out to the bleachers and sat with us.
They were really nice about pointing out how the Bosox players on the field were doing certain things and how we should try to emulate them. The day was absolutely fabulous and was enjoyed by all, but I could not help becoming sad when I looked out to left field several times and noted the absence of my friend, the Splendid Splinter.
Recently, I was watching the CBS news program "Sixty Minutes" when I saw a segment concerning Ted Williams. During this program someone mentioned that Ted was 77 years old and had suffered two strokes. Also, Williams appeared on the program, and the passing years were evident on his face. I was astounded! That could not possibly be right; the Splendid Splinter could not be 77.
Williams stayed on my mind much of that evening; I couldn't forget the warm way he reached down and put his arm around that hateful kid who had just insulted him. I thought about all of the outstanding feats that this remarkable athlete accomplished and how he stubbornly refused to make peace with the sportswriters who criticized him and the fans who booed him unmercifully when he didn't fulfill their expectations. I thought about the day he hit a long home run and then gave the finger to the crowd that was giving him a standing ovation as he crossed home plate.
How could they say that this man was 77 years old? It was at about this time that I passed a mirror in my bedroom and reality came crashing down all around me. The Splendid Splinter was 77, after all, and the cocky little kid was not very far behind him.
Glen Gish of Moneta is a Roanoke native and a retired trust banking officer.
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Curt Gunther. The legendary Ted Williams, in an undatedby CNBphoto.