Ted Williams died yesterday, Friday July 5, of heart conditions. He'd suffered three strokes since 1991, but had been able to throw out the first pitch at the 1999 All-Star game in Fenway. "Ed" was priviledged to see a game at Baseball's temple earlier this year. Williams' spirit has a home on earth, any time he chooses to visit us mere mortals.

In his managerial days, with the 2nd Washington Senators at the turn of the '70s, he was asked if baseball has a future. Williams offered everything has it cycles. The question is still open. Mark D, coach of the Union County (JC) Owls, a commited citizen of the game, feels the imbalance between the major market teams and the rest of the league is dangerous for survival. "Where's baseball's version of the Green Bay Packers?", Mark asks.

Two personal moments on Williams' career. When it was almost over, before the Twins came to Minnesota, the local minor league team was variously a Red Sox and Giant's farm team. (Williams had had a minor league season with them in '38). This year, '58 possibly, the Sox were playing the Millers in "Metropoitan Stadium", built purposely to attract a major league team. My father had taken me to see the Sox play the Millers. Williams didn't appear until the 7th or 8th inning, as a pinch hitter. My father and the entire stadium rose to applaud the "Splendid Splinter" as he came to the plate, I immodestly suggested, "Dad, save the applause till he hits a 3 and 0 pitch out of sight." When the count went 3-0, Williams obliged with a line drive home run that cleared both fences.

The other story, while not personal, pays respect to another of my baseball heros. Williams' most-recalled accomplishement is the last man to hit over .400, hitting .406 in 1941. On the last day of the season, his average stood at .39955, which would "go into the books" at .400. His manager gave him the opportunity to leave it there, and not risk the chance of losing it altogether. Williams would have none of it. This much of the story is widely known. Today in an ESPN interview with Williams, another fact came to light. Confident of his ability, Williams came up to bat the first time in the season-ending double header. As the umpire turned to dust off the plate, he looked up at and said to him, "Relax kid, and you'll get it." The umpire was Hall-of-Famer Bill McGowan, who Williams called "the greatest umpire of all time."

The trivia question here was, until Cal Ripken broke it, "who appeared in the most consecutive baseball games?" The standard answer is "Lou Gherig", a player. For this trick quesion ("who appeared" vs "which player"), the answer is Bill McGowan, who appeared in 2541 consequtive games as an upmpire and held the iron-man record.