Ted Williams: Reflections on a Splendid Life

by Dom Dimaggio, Richard A. Johnson (Contributor), Lawrence Baldassaro (Editor)

A fresh account of William's life highlights the sports hero, war veteran, and activist who will be remembered as one of the greatest hitters in the game. (Sports & Recreation)

Genres: Baseball

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2003

Reviews

[Luke Koran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the concept seems simple, the execution is often carried out mediocrely. That concept is when an author / editor publishes a book that is in actuality a compilation of a wide array of sources that depict a featured subject. I have come across a book like this once before, where the scholar presented numerous sources from both the Europeans and the indigenous peoples in order to fully showcase the Conquest of Mexico and the fall of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century. That book was successful in that it gathered all of these rare sources - fully translated into English - into one place, along with an introduction at the beginning of the book and a small note located before each source in order to give the reader some proper context. As an author who creates these kind of books, their work is quite limited and different than the normal routine of researching and writing from scratch. However, even in this kind of book, an author must know where to look for sources (especially those which are rare and are more unknown, and thus more desired, to the target audience), be diligent in their research, and be able to analyze them altogether in order to make a few of their own conclusions that are then featured in the brief introduction of the book. That book was executed quite well, and is very well-received by the respective scholarly community.

So when I came across this book (which came highly recommended by a sports biographies website) in order to learn a little bit more about the great Ted Williams, I quickly put myself in the mindset that this would not be a comprehensive, new biography but instead was a gathering of multiple sources that depicted "The Splendid Splinter" in different moments of time through different perspectives. Though I did not have a good, well-rounded understanding of who Ted Williams was - besides knowing his statistics and devotion to serving his country - before I read this book, I still found myself pleasantly surprised by how good this book was in giving a thorough overview of Williams along with seeing specific viewpoints of him found myself pleasantly surprised by how good this book was in giving a thorough overview of Williams along with seeing specific viewpoints of him throughout his baseball career. Just like the Mexico book I mentioned earlier, this book is successful in that the author has intelligently chosen and organized these wide array of sources and gathered them all in one place for the benefit of a new audience. This readership likely has never come across these written viewpoints before, or at least found in their original state without an author paraphrasing and offering their own interpretation of them. Every noted sportswriter and Williams' biographer is featured in this volume, with each touching on a new, unique perspective of this man they called "The Kid." Who wouldn't want to read a book that gathers all in one place these wide range of opinions, some of which have been lost to time or otherwise heavily edited and analyzed by new biographers?

Don't read this book to learn about who Ted Williams was before he entered the scene of America's Pastime, or even his life off-the-field. Read this book if you wish to be transported in time to the 20 years that Ted Williams found himself in the truly inescapable though wonderful, splendid world that is professional baseball.