Ted Williams
Hall of Famers at War
| Date and Place of Birth: | August 30, 1918 San Diego, CA |
| Date and Place of Death: | July 5, 2002 Crystal River, FL |
| Baseball Experience: | Hall of Fame |
| Position: | Outfield |
| Rank: | Second Lieutenant |
| Military Unit: | US Navy/US Marine Corps |
| Area Served: | United States/Hawaii |
Theodore S. “Ted” Williams was born in San Diego, California on
August 30, 1918. Williams played baseball at Herbert Hoover High School
in San Diego. After graduation, he was signed by the San Diego Padres of
the Pacific Coast League. By the age of 19, he was putting up
exceptional numbers with in the American Association with the
Minneapolis Millers.
Williams joined the Boston Red Sox in 1939 and led the American League
in RBIs while finishing fourth in the MVP balloting. In 1941 he hit an
incredible .406 making him the first man to hit .400 since Bill Terry in
1930.
Williams had been classified 3-A in the military draft due to the fact
that his mother was totally dependent on him. When his classification
was changed to 1-A following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he
made an appeal to his draft board which was upheld. “I am going to play
ball this season,” he announced. “My conscience is clear. I have as much
right to be exempted as anyone else. I have my mother to support. Before
my status was changed to 1-A, I made commitments which I must go through
with. I can do this by playing ball this year. When the season is over,
I’ll get into the Navy as fast as I can.”
However, the press and the fans were not happy and he enlisted in the
Navy on May 22, 1942. "I'm tickled to death and I'm hoping I'll get into
the air quick to start some slugging against the Axis," he told
reporters. Following the 1942 season, which produced his first Triple
Crown (.356, 36 HR, 137 RBIs), he joined the V-5 program with a view to
becoming a Naval Aviator.
Williams was first sent, with teammate John Pesky, to the Navy's
Preliminary Ground School at Amherst College in Massachusetts, for six
months. The next four months were spent in the Preflight School at
Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he turned out in the spring for the
Chapel Hill Cloudbusters baseball team, featuring Pesky, Harry Craft,
Buddy Hassett and Johnny Sain. “Since the arrival of Cadet Williams,
Pesky and the other ex-major leaguers,” head coach, Lieutenant George D
Kepler, told the Burlington Daily Times-News on July 14, 1943, “most of
our games have been won by one-sided scores. We have been getting good
hitting and pitching, and both the cadets and officers on the team love
to play baseball.”
On July 12, 1943, a team of Armed Forces all-stars managed by Babe Ruth
and featuring Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams played the Boston Braves in
a fund-raising effort. Babe Ruth, 48 years old, pinch-hit in the 7th
inning and flied out to right, but the all-stars won 9-8 on a Ted
Williams home run.
Then, on July 28, 1943, in a charity game for the Red Cross at Yankee
Stadium‚ Babe Ruth lead a team of former Yankees against the
Cloudbusters. Johnny Sain walked the Babe in his one plate appearance‚
as the old time Yankees lost‚ 8-5.
From September to December 1943, Cadet Williams took primary training at
NAS Bunker Hill, Indiana. He then went to NAS Pensacola in Florida for
intermediate training where he set records in aerial gunnery. Williams
received his pilot’s wings and commission as a second lieutenant in the
Marine Corps on May 2, 1944.
Williams then attended gunnery training at Jacksonville where he once
again set gunnery records. He then returned to Pensacola where he served
as an instructor with the United States Marine Corps Reserve at Bronson
Field. He played baseball for the base team, the Bronson Bombers, which
won the Training Command championship that year.
From June to August 1945, Williams went through the Corsair Operational
Training Unit at Jacksonville. He was in Hawaii awaiting orders as a
replacement pilot and playing ball with a Marine flight-wing team when
the war ended. Williams returned to the United States in December and
was discharged from the Marines on January 28, 1946.
Back with the Red Sox in 1946, Williams hit the first spring training
pitch he saw for a home run on February 26 and then led the team to the
World Series. He hit two All-Star-Game home runs at Fenway Park and
finished the season at .342 with 38 home runs and 123 RBIs, and was
named the American League’s Most Valuable Player.
In 1952, at the age of 34, Williams was recalled to active duty for
service in the Korean War. After learning to fly the new Grumman F9F
Panther at MCAS Cherry Point in North Carolina, he was assigned to
VMF-311, Marine Aircraft Group 33 (MAG-33) in Korea.
"By luck of the draw, we went to Korea at the same time," said future
astronaut, John Glenn. "We were in the same squadron there. What they
did at that time, they teamed up a reservist with a regular to fly
together most of the time just because the regular Marine pilots
normally had more instrument flying experience and things like that. So
Ted and I were scheduled together. Ted flew as my wingman on about half
the missions he flew in Korea."
"Once, he was on fire and had to belly land the plane back in," Glenn
said. "He slid it in on the belly. It came up the runway about 1,500
feet before he was able to jump out and run off the wingtip.
"Another time he was hit in the wingtip tank when I was flying with him.
So he was a very active combat pilot, and he was an excellent pilot and
I give him a lot of credit."
Williams flew 39 combat missions before being pulled from flight status
in June of 1953 after an old ear infection acted up. He returned to
baseball after military service and continued to play in the major
leagues until 1960. His final at-bat produced his 521st home run. He was
elected to the Hall of Fame in 1966, his first year of eligibility.
After retirement from play, Williams served as manager of the Washington
Senators. His best season as a manager was 1969 when he led the team to
an 86-76 record in their only winning season in Washington.
Talking about his military service some years later on an episode of
ESPN's Major League Baseball Magazine, Williams said "The three years
that I lost - hell, there were nine billion guys who contributed a lot
more than I did."
In his last years Williams suffered from poor health, specifically
cardiac problems. He had a pacemaker installed in November 2000, and
underwent open-heart surgery in January 2001. After suffering a series
of strokes and congestive heart failures, he died of cardiac arrest in
Crystal River, Florida, on July 5, 2002.
Date Added July 26, 2016. Updated June 9, 2020
Ted Williams at Baseball-Almanac
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