In “The Kid,” a biography of Ted Williams, Ben Bradlee, Jr. tells the story of David Pressman, a 14-year-old boy who “loved baseball and also had a scientific bent.” One night he left his wood bat outside. In the morning he thought the bat felt heavier and had “less pop.” David took it to the post office, borrowed the scale and confirmed his hunch: Wood bats absorb moisture. He devised a method for drying his bat out over coal embers, and then he wrote a letter on his father’s stationary to tell the biggest baseball star in the world, Ted Williams, all about it.
“Next thing you know my father got a call from Ted,” Pressman told Bradlee much later. “My dad said, ‘You might want my kid. He’s in school.’ When I got home, I got a call from Ted. He said, ‘Can you come to Fenway?’” David went and explained to Ted the principle of restitution, “in which both bat and ball compress and then expand at impact.” He told Ted to put his bats in the clubhouse clothes dryer and weigh them every 15 minutes until they quit losing weight. David had already arranged for Ted to get two post office scales.
So Ted Williams was the kind of guy who, when sent an unsolicited letter from a fan promising to make him a better hitter, called the fan. And when he found out the fan was actually a 14-year-old boy who was unavailable because he was in school, he called back.
Once, during a season in which Ted Williams was considering retiring, Ted was waiting for a train. A fan walked up and told Ted he just couldn’t retire, not with his career stats where they were. The fan laid out a statistical case showing which milestones Ted was likely to reach if he kept playing, what rarified history he might make. The train began boarding. Bradlee writes:
“Get in touch with me!” Williams yelled as the train pulled away. Not long afterward, the two met again over dinner in New York—
What? What! The two met again over dinner in New York? And, according to Bradlee, the guy convinced Ted to keep playing for six more years, all the while sending Ted postcards and telegrams updating him on “approaching milestones.” Ted Williams was the kind of guy who, approached by a stranger, scheduled a dinner to let the stranger advise him on important career decisions.
Much of the past makes it to us as legend. A lot of it was misreported or misunderstood by the people who were writing things down at the time. But a lot of it simply happened within a context that would have made sense to people then but doesn’t make sense to us now. This is all relevant to a story I’m going to share with you this week. As Ann Patchett wrote, “The past is made of stories that are unlikely to happen now.”
You're such a tease😉. Can't wait for the full story🙂👍⚾️