It's Only Me: The Ted Williams We Hardly Knew

by John Underwood

Almost everyone knows the public Ted the great hitter, the war hero, the avid outdoorsman and the man who seemed to be a lightning rod for controversy his whole life. Fewer know the very private Ted, and fewer still knew him as well as his friend and confidante of over 30 years, John Underwood. From vacations off the Florida Keys, to African Safaris to the beaches of Costa Rica, Underwood and Williams vacationed together and got to know each as close personal friends. Underwood draws on both his private recordings with Williams?the audio CD contains candor from Williams about a wide variety of subjects that no baseball fan has heard before?and his personal experiences to craft a book about what he learned from his friendship. Reminiscent of bestseller Tuesdays With Morrie, It's Only Me allows the private side of Williams to educate and entertain baseball fans more than they ever imagined before.

Genres: Sports, Biography, Baseball, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Underwood (1934- )

Reviews

[Karen Throckmorton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir of a friendship of over thirty years between the “greatest hitter of all times” in baseball and the gifted sports writer, John Underwood. A .406 hitting record, which I understand is extraordinary. I am not a baseball fan, but I love a good book.

“Loss is measured most accurately by the void that it leaves.” The memoir was published in 2005, three years after Williams died.

Underwood does not gloss over the complexity of Williams. The “fits and feuds and emotional binges that marked him as …unforgettable”. He was a “walking storehouse of resentments.” Obscene gestures. Broken golf clubs and tennis rackets. Spitting at fans. The anger. A world class swearer. His antagonism towards the press whom he called, the “knights of the keyboard.” The broken marriages.

Yet the book is full of compassion, kindness. Years of adventures. Happy gatherings of their families. And admiration for a professional athlete who asked for a reduction in his salary ( $125,000 to $90,000) because he was disappointed in his prior season. Who did not let wealth or fame corrupt him. Drove a Ford station wagon. Cut his own hair. Ate at early bird specials at restaurants. Loved to entertain casually and grill the food. He was frugal, yet generous.

And the humor…In a low budget hash house he frequented, he’d ask the waitress what time does the band start? When he caught a fish and you didn’t, “There’s a lot of jealousy in this boat.”

“In later years..he looked a lot like [John] Wayne. “I told him I thought it was deliberate. He told me not to be a smart-ass.”

Williams “was never, ever happy with the world around that pearl of a career.” In Williams’ words, “In a crowd of cheers, I could always pick out the solitary boo.

A unique friendship between two talented and successful people. I’m glad Underwood shared the story.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Underwood, who helped Ted Williams write his autobiography and his book on the science of hitting, produces in It's Only Me a wonderful memoir of his friendship with the iconic and irascible Hall of Famer. It's little surprise that Underwood is as capable as he is at evoking the voice and presence of Teddy Ballgame in these pages, but for this fan of baseball history and the Boston Red Sox, it was a stunning joy to "hear" and feel that voice in this book. I only found out about the existence of this memoir in Underwood's obituary earlier this year, and I'm immensely grateful to have read it, and to have it to add to my collection of baseball books. Even as a "warts and all" presentation of Ted Williams (and there are warts galore in these pages), the grandeur and span of Ted Williams, who was perhaps the living evocation of the term "sui generis," comes ringing through. The payoff in the final pages of this book is deeply moving.

[George Papagelis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know much about Ted Williams. This was a good book about his life, mostly non-baseball life.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a biography, more of a second person memoir--IT’S ONLY ME is a selection of memories of conversations and interactions between the author and Ted Williams. Baseball is a part of the equation here. I don’t think it’s possible to talk about Ted without talking about baseball, but it is not the primary focus of this book. The focus is on the inner workings of the man that resulted in his public persona. On things that were important to him, Williams was an all-in kind of guy for better or worse. He devoted himself to perfection as a hitter and a fisherman, mastering the physical and mental aspects of each skill. The concept of fairness was central to his personality. Near the end of his career he walked into the owner’s office and demanded that his salary be cut. Ted thought that he had not performed as well as was appropriate for the salary he had been paid the previous season. Hitting was sacred to Ted. When in the chapel of the batter’s box Williams never questioned the umpire’s call, saying they both put their best efforts into it. Famously, in 1941, when he had the last .400 season recorded in major league baseball (finishing with a .406 average), he refused to take advantage of an offer by his manager to sit out a double header on the final day of the season and preserve his .400 average. To Ted, if he had not played those last two games it would not have been fair.

The picture that emerges here is of a complex and focused man, who could be either a generous friend or a difficult foe, but who was seldom uncommitted. Underwood shows that Williams held himself and others to a high standard and his public actions resulted from having set the bar high. A good book for baseball fans and anyone else who would like to learn more about this American icon.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful book about the man who was only the greatest hitter in the history of baseball.