1959 Ted Williams Fleer Cards

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Even before he left for Korea, he only played in 89 games in 1950. He also missed a lot of games after he came back in '54 and '55 before your 1956-60 average kicks in.

Dave

In 1950, Ted broke his left arm in the 1st inning of All-Star Game, when he slammed into the Comiskey Park scoreboard.

I remember this well....my parents bought our first TV in the Summer of 1950....just in time to watch the All Star game.



TED Z

[JollyElm]

As a native New Yorker (who came around a while after Ted retired), I always had a rhetorical 'hatred' for Ted Williams, and I laugh at that now. This inborn bias is hard to explain to other people who've never lived there, but the Mets, and to a lesser extent the Yanks, were everything to me, so their historical enemies were my enemies. And I always thought his nickname of 'The Splendid Splinter' referred to him being a jerk--like how a splinter in your finger annoys the living h_ll out of you.

With age comes wisdom, and many years ago it took my dad talking about Ted's service in the Korean conflict (my dad was a Korean war veteran, too) that really flipped a switch in me. I started looking beyond how NY hated Boston and all that junk, and realized what a tremendous player and human being this guy was. Yowza!

Thanks for your stories, Ted Z. Great stuff!