Williams Relives Old Days

It isn’t often you get to “walk the ‘hood” with the likes of Ted Williams. Of course, there aren’t many individuals in or out of the world of sports who are quite like Ted Williams.

Here he was, late in a sweltering Wednesday afternoon, stepping out of a cab into his past.

His cronies were waiting, guys like Les Cassie and Frank Cushing and Roy Engle and Wilbert Wiley and Joe Villariano. Bob Breitbard and the Hall of Champions had arranged a little reunion in the North Park neighborhood where they had gotten dusty and dirty together so many decades ago.

“Just something small,” Breitbard had said.

And it was, at least in relation to what it might have been if all the world knew that Ted Williams was going to step out of that taxi at what it now known as Ted Williams Field on Idaho Street. It would have been much more than mini-mob scene it was just by word of mouth that Williams was , in fact, the tall man in the middle of all the laughter by the backstop.

Williams was in town, of course, because the All-Star game is headed our way. He will make an appearance at FanFest Friday, at the dedication of the Ted Williams Parkway Sunday and at the All-Star game itself Tuesday. You can bet Thursday and Saturday are jammed too.

On Wednesday, however, he was Muhammad Ali back in Louisville or Neil Diamond back in Brooklyn or, for the adulation he got from his old pals, Babe Ruth back from the dead.

Wiley was carrying a beaten up old glove which looked too old for even “Field of Dreams.” It was a glove Williams had used. No one really paid too much attention to Williams’ gloves. The bat, 521 home runs and a .344 lifetime batting average, ensured him of an enduring place in baseball history.

Williams put his hand on Wiley’s shoulder.

“I’d say, curve ball, curve ball, fast ball, curve ball,” Williams said. “I’ll never forget the day I told Wilbert, ‘Throw anything you want to throw.’ ”

Neither remembered exactly what day that was, but it had to be pivotal if that was the day a hitter like Ted Williams realized he didn’t have to know what was coming to hit it.

“I tried to mix my stuff up,” Wiley said, “but I couldn’t throw one by him.”

Wiley told of one home run Williams launched from home plate at one corner of the sandlot all the way over the backstop at the far corner. This was when he was a kid.

Williams had not heard Wiley’s story, but he must have heard one just like it.

“I hit my first sandlot home run when the fences were really close, maybe 250, maybe 280, to center,” he mused. “The latest I heard was that it went all the way over that screen out there.”

He gestured, of course, to the backstop at the far corner of the sandlot. He has to know what legends produce legendary stories. Why question them? They’re nicer the way they are.

Williams was looking around and squinting into the sun. The reservoir was gone. Maybe the whole field was a few feet further south than it had been.

“Where’s the water tower?” he asked, craning his neck to look through the trees. “There it is! It’s still there.”

Most important were the buddies who were still there. It had been some time, what with him splitting his time between homes in Florida and Canada, since he had been home. They came to him one-by-one, cautiously as though fearful they may not be recognized. His memory batted 1.000.

“What’s this guy’s name?” someone asked.

“Joe, Joe,” Williams proclaimed. “Joe Villariano! Great to see you. Musta been 40 years.”

Williams frowned. His memory had dredged up a choose ‘em up baseball game.

“You remember one time when I was second ?” he asked. “Do you remember who you picked first?”

Joe did, and so did Williams.

“And I didn’t blame you,” he said. “He could hit.”

I don’t know too many guys who’d be chosen behind Williams in a pickup game today , and the man is 73 years old.

There were houses for miles in all directions as Williams stood there Wednesday afternoon. He did not have to go far to hunt rabbits back in his boyhood.

“Say,” he said, “where’s that new road?”

The Ted Williams Parkway is not exactly a new road, just a road with a new name. It used to be North City Parkway.

“I used to hunt mountain quail up there,” Williams said.

There are houses for miles and miles up there now.

Breitbard tugged at his elbow. He wanted him to visit his boyhood home on Utah Street.

“Hey,” Williams laughed, “I’m not running for office.”

The schedule waited while Williams signed whatever scraps of paper youngsters playing softball nearby could scrounge out of their pockets. This was quite an occasion to have happening at their park.

A few minutes later, he was striding across the street toward a modest house with a low cyclone fence around the front yard. He had an entourage by now, and I wondered if the occupants knew anything of the famous stranger about to tap on their door.

“Hi,” he said to a woman out of a Norman Rockwell painting. “I’m Ted Williams.”

Eileen Higgins greeted him warmly.

“My mother bought this house in 1923, 1924, somewhere in there,” he said.

“I think they say 1924,” she said.

Ms. Higgins obviously knew something of her visitor.

“See that big green place across the street,” she said later. “That’s where he signed his first contract. They still have the papers.”

I drove away thinking this whole neighborhood should someday be a national monument. This man should have more than just a parkway set aside in his honor.