Dispute Flares Over Naming of Boston Harbor Tunnel : Legends: Governor wants to honor baseball great Ted Williams. Others are pushing a ‘Last Hurrah’ for a politician, James Michael Curley.

It’s the Splendid Splinter vs. the Rascal King.

The naming of the third tunnel under Boston Harbor is shaping up as a contest between Boston’s biggest sports legend, Ted Williams, and its biggest political legend, James Michael Curley.

In October, Gov. William Weld brought the former Red Sox left fielder to Boston and unveiled a sign reading, “Ted Williams Tunnel.”

But Robert Kane, an undertaker from the suburbs, wants to keep the Williams proposal in the dugout.

He says Curley--who served as a Boston city councilman, mayor, Massachusetts governor, U.S. representative and state legislator in a political career spanning 55 years--is a more suitable person to name the tunnel after.

“I’m not trying to deify him. He was not a saint, but he accomplished a lot,” the 51-year-old Kane said. “There should be some public building or some public structure named after him.”

Other than a statue near Fanueil Hall, and an elementary school named for his first wife, nothing in Curley’s beloved Boston bears his name.

Curley, who died in 1958 eight days short of his 84th birthday, was one of the nation’s most prominent big-city Democratic bosses. The basis for the main character in the book “The Last Hurrah,” he was elected mayor in four different decades and served one term as governor.

A friend of immigrants, particularly the Irish, Curley was a populist with an oratorical flair who knew how to use patronage appointments and public works jobs. Indeed, the proposal to name the tunnel after Curley could be viewed as a pay-back--he gave Kane’s uncle a job at the Fire Department.

Curley, dubbed “The Rascal King” in a recent biography of that title by Jack Beatty, also served two prison terms--one in 1904 for impersonating a friend at a civil service exam, and one for mail fraud during his last mayoral term. President Harry S. Truman pardoned Curley for the mail-fraud conviction.

While Curley presided over City Hall and Boston’s neighborhoods, Williams’ domain was more centered--left field and home plate at Fenway Park.

Williams--also known as Teddy Ballgame and the Thumper--was the last major league baseball player to hit .400 for the season, with a .406 average in 1941. He amassed 521 home runs, 1,839 RBIs and 2,654 hits despite missing about five years of playing time because he served as a Marine pilot during World War II and the Korean War. In his last at-bat, Williams clouted a homer at Fenway Park.

Weld said he chose the 75-year-old Williams because too many public structures are named for politicians. Williams, who also has roads named for him in Massachusetts and his native San Diego, called it one of his greatest honors.

But some Democrats said Weld was premature in declaring the tunnel named for Williams, a Republican fishing buddy of former President George Bush.

“The governor had the signs made and the announcements made like it was cut and dried,” said state Rep. Thomas Kennedy, who filed Kane’s bill.

Rep. Steven Karol, chairman of the committee that will rule on the bills, has said the tunnel won’t be named until construction is finished, sometime in 1995.

The tunnel is part of the Central Artery project, which also involves replacing the elevated highway through downtown Boston with a larger underground expressway.

Kennedy and Kane both were quick to say they were big fans of Williams. But they suggested that a proposed domed stadium would be a better facility to bear the Hall of Famer’s name.

One of the existing tunnels was named after William Callahan Jr., the then-transportation commissioner’s son who was killed in World War II. Kane said the third tunnel was a natural to name after Curley because construction of the first one, named after War of 1812 veteran William H. Sumner, began during Curley’s tenure.

“I think he kind of hoped they would name that first one after him,” Kane said.