Product Description

Now available for the first time in years, My Turn at Bat is Ted Williams' own story of his spectacular life and baseball career.

An acclaimed best-seller, My Turn at Bat now features new photographs and, for the first time, Ted's reflections on his managing career and the state of baseball as it is played in the 1980s. It's all here in this brilliant, honest and sometimes angry autobiography -- Williams' childhood days in San Diego, his military service, his unforgettable major league baseball debut and ensuing Hall of Fame career that included two Triple Crowns, two Most Valuable Player awards, six batting championships, five Sporting News awards as Major League Player of the Year, 521 lifetime homeruns and a .344 career batting average. And Williams tells his side of the controversies, from his battles with sportswriters and Boston fans to his single World Series performance and his career with the declining Red Sox of the 1950s.

My Turn at Bat belongs in the library of everyone who loves Ted Williams, baseball, or great life stories well-told.

Red Barber proclaimed My Turn at Bat to be: "One of the best baseball books I've ever read." John Leonard of The New York Times said My Turn at Bat was "unbuttoned and wholly engaging...the portrait of an original who is unrepentant about being better than anyone else."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161539 in Books
• Published on: 1988-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Cleveland Plain Dealer Williams emerges as an honest chronicler of an interesting American career, with the blemishes plain as well as the mighty accomplishments. -- Review

Review
Larry KingAn absolute smash!

The Philadelphia BulletinBristles with hate, ego and unsparing bluntness.

Cleveland Plain DealerWilliams emerges as an honest chronicler of an interesting American career, with the blemishes plain as well as the mighty accomplishments.

About the Author
Ted Williams has also coauthored with John Underwood Fishing the Big Three and The Science of Hitting, which are available from Fireside/Simon & Schuster.

Customer Reviews

Complex personality
First, a quick qualifier: the four stars is for "My Turn at Bat" as a baseball book. Unlike "The Boys of Summer," for example, it is not also a literary gem, nor, I suspect, was it intended to be.

That said, Williams and his collaborator, the fine writer John Underwood, achieve a peppery tone in the book that one certainly heard in Williams's voice when he spoke out after his baseball life. Williams's language is rich and funny and-especially when he speaks about baseball writers-sometimes bitter.

The book paints a vivid picture of Williams's childhood in San Diego which, he says, included countless hours playing ball in backyards and city parks. Ted is at pains later in the book to point out that his enormous success as a hitter came from this constant practice, not as a result of his keen eyesight, which was the subject of much legend.

The book also brings to life the storied Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, which of course produced a lopsided advantage in favor of the New Yorkers during Williams's career. You feel his frustration when he discusses the final-game loss to the Yankees in 1949 that ended the Red Sox season and the team's subsequent decline over the remainder of his career. That loss came after his poor showing in the 1946 World Series-the only one of his career-and a season-ending playoff loss to the Indians in 1948.

These frustrations and his vicious battles with the press bring out the human side of Ted, important because as a hitter he seemed to most in a world of his own. To his credit, he doesn't dwell unduly on his achievements, but to ignore the magnitude of them is impossible: only one season below .300, 521 career home runs, an incredible on-base percentage, and so on. The humanity is also revealed in his description of his final at-bat (which resulted in a home run). Despite his emotion, he was unable, he says, to acknowledge the crowd (famously commented on in an essay by John Updike) despite its clamoring and the urging of his teammates to take an extra turn in the spotlight. Not my way, the Splendid Splinter says.

A final section of the book is also very interesting for Williams's comments on the secrets of hitting and his recommendations for improving the game. Some of the latter are timely for the game today: he urges hitters and pitchers to work more quickly, and he advocated before its adoption the use of a designated hitter. Personally I don't find that to have been one of baseball's shining ideas, but he certainly was foresighted.

If you're looking for much on Ted's personal life, look elsewhere, but as a fine read for the student of baseball, "My Turn at a Bat" should get a turn with the reader.

Good Hot Stove League
"My Turn at Bat" is a biography of the late Ted Williams, slugging left fielder for the Boston Red Sox from 1939-1960. MYB is very pleasant and easy reading. The tone is conversational, as if there were no ghostwriter. The reader might almost believe Ted is present in the room. There are few surprises. The tale unfolds in linear fashion from TWs childhood through his career-ending homer against young Jack Fisher of the Orioles. The reader of "a certain age" will be reintroduced to some old friends both on the Bosox and other teams: Del Baker, Joe Cronin, Lou Boudreau, Dom Di Maggio, Bobby Doerr, Billy Goodman, Pinky Higgins, Jim Tabor and TWs favorite manager, Marse Joe McCarthy are all here. TW makes his love for fishing quite clear. Those salmon in New Brunswick's Miramichi River must be wonderful! There are some negatives: The spacing of the paragraphs makes reading a challenge and the chapters are oddly sequenced. MTB has a patched together undertone. These flaws are not fatal; they are listed here for the record. There is also a sense of melancholy to MTB. This reviewer always thought TW gave that vibe in his final years. It seemed TW would leave a game early for no apparent reason. In fact TW lost the 1954 and 1955 batting titles due to insufficient times at bat and he never did achieve 3,000 hits. Something was going on there. Perhaps it was the 5 (!) seasons lost to military service. If TW had those seasons back, he would own the record book. The final word on MTB remains positive. The only major warning label might be that the potential audience is limited. Fans with little curiosity concerning the TW era may be disappointed. Hardcore Bosox fans or those who remember Ted from the good old days should pounce.

The True Essence of Ted Williams
I read this autobiography many years ago, and recently, decided to give it another look. Mr. Williams pulls no punches in this very honest, entertaining, and well-written story of his life in and out of baseball. Unfortunately, due to the strange circumstances surrounding his recent death, many fans will forget his tremendous achievements in our national pasttime. Along with the fact that Mr. Williams lost five or six prime years of his career due to his military commitments. He was a true patriot, and his war anecdotes are entertaining, educational, and provocative. He flew planes with the same focused determination as hitting a baseball.

Reading the book again also brought back a childhood memory. Mr. Williams owned a baseball camp in Lakeville, MA that is mentioned in this book. When I was young, I attended this camp. It was run with military precision, and even as a child, you were treated as an adult. Coaches never berated you in front of your teammates as was customary in the Little Leagues or Boy's Clubs. The whole atmosphere and environment were conducive to promoting your best efforts. The presence of Mr. Williams was felt everywhere. On rainy days, we used to watch countless films about the science of hitting.

This book is an excellent story, and for many of us, will take us back to our youth. But young baseball fans also can benefit from this tale of one of our greatest athletes and patriots.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.