A Statue of Ted Williams Unveiled at Cooperstown

Every time a baseball player hits one good, he gets a special feeling as the ball sails toward home run territory.

Sculptor Armand LaMontagne has captured that moment in wood with a most appropriate subject--Hall of Famer Ted Williams, baseball’s only living .400 hitter.

LaMontagne’s life-like, life-size work of the Boston Red Sox slugger who was nicknamed “The Splendid Splinter” was unveiled Friday at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

LaMontagne caught Williams at the instant after he belted a fastball. He has completed his swing, torso twisted like a pretzel, neck muscles bulging with stress and tension.

Williams’ head and eyes are frozen straight ahead, as if watching the ball far above the bullpens that border right-centerfield in Boston’s Fenway Park.

At first glance, you’d swear this Ted Williams is wearing an official Red Sox uniform. But it’s all carefully sculpted and painted wood, carved from a single 1,400-pound block of laminated basswood. Right down to the beltloops, buttons and the crimson No. 9 on the back.

Last year, LaMontagne worked from photographs to complete a similar life-size work of Babe Ruth, his bat cocked, waiting for the pitch to arrive. That statue quickly became the main attraction in the Hall of Fame’s lobby. Now, it has a neighbor.

Williams visited LaMontagne’s studio five times to pose for the work and help provide exact details on his swing and style. The work portrays him in the mid-1950s, when he was still in his prime in his mid-30s.

To help with accuracy, the Hall of Fame loaned LaMontagne one of Williams’ Red Sox uniforms, plus a bat he used in 1941, the year the six-time American League batting champion hit .406.

On one trip to the studio, Williams was accompanied by his 16-year-old son John Henry, born long after his father’s baseball days. He was awed when he walked in and saw the Red Sox uniform hanging on the studio wall. John Henry had never seen one of his dad’s uniforms before.

LaMontagne was precise on minute details--like one raised knuckle in Williams’ batting grip, a slightly off-center cap, the double knots he tied in his shoes, and the way he kept the tongues up to keep dirt out.

The sculptor even has Williams choking up one inch on his Louisville Slugger.

“He’s a perfectionist. He insisted that I do that,” LaMontagne said. “Ted told me, ‘You’re going to be criticized for that, but you’re absolutely right.”’

“When he came in, I told him: ‘There’s a 1,400-pound splinter here, all we have to do is make it splendid.’ He said, ‘You can do it.’ He kept me right on course.”

Williams, 66, was impressed. On a full-color working sketch that LaMontagne prepared, he wrote: “To Armand, who did such a good job, even making me look good.”

LaMontagne had a fun with this work, which was commissioned by the Yawkey Foundation, run by Red Sox co-owner Jean Yawkey.

“I was an all-state baseball player in high school and he was my hero,” LaMontagne said. “The first thing he did when he got in here was give me a batting lesson. I’m not going to argue with the only living .400 hitter.”

The project was something new for Williams, who spends most of his time fishing these days and does some spring training batting instruction for the Red Sox.

LaMontagne started with the big block of wood, and an electric chainsaw to rough cut the statue. Then he switched to mallet and a series of carefully sharpened chisels. One wrong stroke could have ruined the work.

“Ted and I both earn a living swinging a stick,” LaMontagne said. “He swung a bat, I swing a mallet. He had three shots at it. I had one.”

Despite several serious injuries and two war interruptions, Williams batted .344 and hit 521 homers during a 19-year career with the Red Sox that stretched from 1939 through 1960.

Williams was the AL Most Valuable Player in 1946 and 1949 but shrugged off the honors with the comment, “MVP awards are something people give you; batting titles are things you win yourself.”