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"What's Williams like?"
"Oh, he's terrific," Nowlin said.
"A classy guy?"
"Absolutely."
When someone whom you know dies, you learn some secrets. Even if you figured you knew everything, there are secrets. "Artie was very proud of that," my brother told me about Dad's war service. This happened during the week of the funeral in Chelmsford.
"Really?"
"Absolutely."
He had been a Master Sergeant in the Army, assigned to regiments that tailed the first wave on D-Day and into the Bulge. He had done well, I always assumed, but I assumed further that it hadn't meant much to a guy who was extremely modest and unforthcoming about himself. I knew he had been awarded the Bronze Star, but the medal had been lost in a house fire back in the late 1950s and he had never sought a replacement through the Veterans Administration. So, I figured, how much could it have meant to him?
As I've indicated a few times above: Well before Ted Williams became a lovable figure, my dad defended him. I assume now that this had something to do with their shared duty in World War II. I'll never know. What I do know was that much of Boston reviled the Splendid Splinter for much of his and my lifetime, but in our family, Ted was not to be reviled. Dad felt or sensed that Ted had the critical things — the things having to do with class — in proper order. And so he deserved our support.
Dad's intense fanship of Williams must have dated to that magic summer of '46, when Lu and Artie fell deeply in love. The ex Army sergeant would drive Route 3 each evening with his soon-to-be fiancee, then would cut class to watch the ex Marine pilot lead a rare and wonderful Red Sox team to the pennant, if not to the championship. Life must have looked just about perfect to Artie that summer, and Ted Williams must have looked like perfection personified. The noted nature writer Bob Boyle once told me, "I'm not amazed that the greatest hitter who ever lived was such a good fisherman, I'm amazed that the greatest salmon fisherman who ever lived could hit a curve ball 500 feet!" That's how good Williams was. The day Boyle told me that, I couldn't wait to call Dad and share the reflection.
Ted did nothing on the day my dad took Kevin and I, ages eight and six, to see him play. Oh-for-something, maybe a couple of putouts in left, but, in sum, zippo. Still, I had seen him play. Dad had done his job. He had got us started.
And then life went on. I recall Dad leaning close to the radio one evening when Kevin and I came back from fishing down by the Red House in West Chelmsford. Earl Wilson was finishing his no-hitter, a one-nothing job that he had to win himself with a homer because the Sox were such bad hitters. "Listen to this," Dad said as we came in through the screen door. "Wilson's got a no-hitter going."
I remember August and September of 1967 as if they were yesterday, I remember '75 and '78 just as vividly. I remember a game in the early '80s when Dad and I were finally in role-reversal: I took him to Fenway. It was a midweek afternoon game in April, back in the days — not so long ago — when the Sox wouldn't schedule a night game until a little later in the season, when New England warmed up a bit. Anyway, on this particular Tuesday or Wednesday, electrical power had been knocked out in Kenmore Square and, therefore, throughout Fenway Park. The ballgame that day was all hollow sounds and cheers — bat on ball, "Steeee-rike One!" "Hot peanuts!" Fist thwacking glove. Sherm Feller opened the ceremonies by leaning out of the press box window and singing the National Anthem through a bullhorn. It was wonderful, magical. I was probably 26 or 27 years old and had just landed an entry-level edit job with Sports Illustrated. I subsequently wrote an account of the special day and submitted it to our Scorecard editor. He was kind enough to run it.
Last Saturday in Chelmsford, Mom gave me something she had found in Dad's very small pile of saved possessions. It was a blown-up, framed version of the Scorecard item, headlined POWER FAILURE. "You'll want this," she told me. "This is when you took Artie to Fenway for his birthday." I hadn't remembered it had been his birthday.
I was in Chelmsford because I had taken my family up to Massachusetts for the Fourth of July; we're planning to get up there as often as we can this summer. It surprised me not at all when I learned on Friday that Ted Williams had died. "Makes sense we're up in Beantown," I said to my sister. "I can't believe, though, what's happened since Dad died. Rosie Clooney with the lung cancer. Now Ted Williams. All of Dad's favorites."
My sister had earlier expressed the opinion that if the Red Sox did win it all this year, she would hate them forever since Artie would miss it. But now we joked with one another. Let's say that all of our younger notions of Faith were correct, I suggested. Let's assume that the way we envisioned the hereafter, back when Faith could be taken on faith, was precisely the way it was. Then, certainly, in the precinct of Heaven reserved for Boston-centric, war veteran Bosox fanatics, two recent arrivals, Dad and Ted, were looking down, watching the action. Ted would certainly have enough bravado to approach Babe Ruth and tell him to cut the crap with this Curse of the Bambino stuff. "Maybe if they win it this year," Gail suggested finally, "it's actually because Dad's up there. Dad and Ted."
Yeah, maybe. But the facts are, the Bosox played like dogs last weekend and lost twice to Detroit.
To reiterate: Detroit.
Maybe Ted was having trouble getting by St. Peter. There was that divorce business on his resume, after all, and he did spit at the fans. His favorite adjective, constantly deployed during waking hours, was "Goddamned!".
I can see Dad wandering shyly out to the Pearly Gate with his good word: "You know how much he raised for the kids with cancer? Millions. You know how many wars. . . ."
Precisely a year ago in this electronic space I wrote a long, digressive, personal account of my daughter's first baseball game, a very carefully chosen minor-league contest in Lowell, Mass., between a Bosox Single-A affiliate and a Yankee counterpart. I didn't realize until re-reading it just now how much Dad was part of that story. I wrote in that piece about Dad's considered selection of the Ted Williams game for his sons, and also about how pleased he was that Caroline was coming "home" for her first game. Caroline got hit with a foul ball during that game. She was knocked out cold (everything turned out okay; read "Caroline's First Game" here). Dad, upon learning of this later in the night, expressed the opinion that he was too old for this kind of drama.
"There are a few things I wish he hadn't lived to see," I said to my sister last weekend. "I wish he hadn't seen Caroline get whacked a year ago. I wish he hadn't seen September 11. I wish he hadn't seen the church scandal.
"I guess I'm glad he didn't seen Ted Williams die. That would have made him feel even older."
We were on our way to church when I shared that notion. My sister's parish in Wellesley is St. John and St. Mary's, the now famous one where the laity has risen up to challenge Cardinal Law. That is and isn't beside the point. Dad was pleased that Gail attended a church that saw things clearly. And he would have appreciated a priest who was not shy about beginning his homily with words concerning Ted Williams.
The sermon was about perfection — apparent perfection versus the real thing — and after applauding Williams not only for his .344 lifetime average and his service in two wars but for his tireless work on behalf of kids with cancer, the priest quickly changed the subject to Jesus. In Greater Boston last weekend, that was no great journey from Teddy Ballgame to Christ. It was a perfectly sensible segue, a New England metaphor the congregation easily understood and fully appreciated. There were smiles throughout the church, and knowing nods.
"Who died?" Caroline asked me on our way to the parking lot. She's four and a half now, and has just had a month of learning far too much about death.
"Ted Williams. He was a baseball player."
"With a B hat?"
"Yes. He was the best B-hat player ever."
"Did he know Papa?"
"No. But Papa knew him."
"Maybe he'll meet Papa now."
"I certainly hope so," I said as I gave my daughter a hug. "He'd like Papa."