He went by a number of nicknames, this legend. Some called him Teddy Ballgame. Others settled for The Splendid Splinter. Still others called him simply The Kid.

But to another local legend, former Bangor Daily News executive sports editor Bud Leavitt, Ted Williams was something else.

He was a friend.

Of course, if you grew up around here, you already suspected that.

Many of us aren’t old enough to remember the long, fluid swing that propelled Williams into the Hall of Fame. We’re left with grainy newsreel clips, a pile of statistics, and the glowing printed accounts of a career that ended in 1960.

But you know Williams. You saw those Nissen Bakery commercials on TV, heard Williams’ deep, John Wayne voice, and watched as he took verbal potshots at the good-natured sportswriter from Bangor.

But if you didn’t grow up reading about Leavitt’s adventures with Williams, you wondered. Is that a put-on? Is Williams just doing those ads for the money? Does he even know who Bud Leavitt is?

Rest assured, he did.

Just ask Ralph Long. Long, who spends his summers on Monson Pond, has a home about a mile from Williams’ place in Citrus Hills, Fla. He’s a retired newsman who spent time at the Bangor Commercial, the Bangor Patriot, and the Boston Herald, among others.

When Long was enduring physical therapy sessions for his arthritis in the late 1990s, Williams was getting therapy after suffering his first stroke.

The pair often chatted while at the hospital, talking about old acquaintances.

Like Leavitt.

Long remembers fishing with the duo in Princeton decades ago, and witnessing the classically acerbic Williams wit.

“They were like brothers,” Long said. “[Williams] would call him ‘the fat one.’ Bud would hold his own end up. But Ted was pretty sassy anyway. When he’d see me, he’d call me ‘Shorty.'”

Leavitt’s daughter, Liz Polkinghorn, said the bond between the two men began in a Fenway Park dugout, after an exchange her father delighted in recounting.

“[My dad] was on one side of the dugout and Ted was on the other. [Williams] hollered at my dad, ‘Hey, bush,’ which my dad took as a slur, being from Maine. Bush-leaguer.

“He wanted to talk about fishing in Maine,” she said. “My dad said, ‘If you want to talk to me, you come over here. He did.”

Polkinghorn said the fact that Leavitt stood up to Williams and didn’t fawn over him like some other reporters may have impressed the baseball star.

Polkinghorn said she has early memories of Williams showing up at the Leavitt home and leaving his car for her mother to use while her father and the baseball star drove off to some fishing haunt or other.

And she said when Williams showed up, everybody knew about it.

“How do I say this diplomatically?” she said. “He was boisterous.”

Artist and writer Tom Hennesssey, who worked with Leavitt at the NEWS for years, said he also got the chance to see the repartee between the two friends on a few occasions, when Williams visited Leavitt’s Hampden home, and said Williams continued to call his pal “Bush” for years.

Leavitt’s reaction?

“Not much,” Hennessey said with a chuckle. “Bud idolized him. I always said that Bud would have gone to hell if he knew Ted Williams was gonna be there.”

But the relationship between Williams and Leavitt was deeper than that of a hero-worshipping writer and a former baseball star.

When Leavitt was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame in 1985, he had a choice to make. Inductees can select anyone they want to act as a “presenter.” Many choose relatives, or coaches from their past.

Leavitt chose Williams. And Williams was there.

Williams began coming to Maine to fish back in 1947, according to published reports.

Former NEWS sports editor Owen Osborne accompanied Williams on that first trip into the wilderness in a float plane, and flew back to Greenville with the slugger later that day.

Read some of Leavitt’s old columns, and you find that the 30-second Nissen spots don’t scratch the surface of the Leavitt-Williams bond.

In January of 1966, Leavitt wrote an ode to Williams and shared some memories of his old pal.

In a few brief paragraphs, the breadth of their friendship was illuminated for all to see.

Leavitt remembered:

“The first time Ted ventured onto a golf course. It was at the Penobscot Valley Country Club and because he could not beat me that day, war was declared on golf.”

“His love for lemon pie, a quart of cold milk, a king-size divan to sprawl on and a silenced telephone.”

“The days we fished and hunted together from Florida to Canada. … I’ll never forgive him for snoring so loud.”

“The day he called and said, ‘We’re going to be married. Don’t say a word. We’ll be in Bangor within six hours.’ The guy spent his honeymoon here.”

Williams spent a lot of time in Maine over the years, much of it with an unlikely buddy: His war with reporters was legendary in Boston during his playing career.

In 1950, Williams waded into the Bangor Salmon Pool for the first time and didn’t get a tap. His claim: There were no fish to be caught.

Twenty-five years later, he returned to the same river, took a look at the ledger of fish that had been caught, and saw that efforts to restore the salmon fishery had been successful. Leavitt wrote that Williams was ecstatic about that fact.

From the Miramichi to the Florida Keys, Leavitt and Williams spent countless hours fishing … talking … living life exactly as they wanted to live it: Outside. In the wilderness. With friends.

They had that in common.

They ate camp food or the lemon pie that Leavitt’s wife, Barbara, prepared. Sometimes they stopped by Miller’s restaurant.

When Leavitt died in 1994, Williams called the NEWS to say how sorry he was. He called the sportswriter “a great, dear friend.”

He said that he’d been thinking about Leavitt since hearing of his death. He said he’d dreamed about his old friend.

And he told the story of driving through a herd of sheep with Leavitt while trying to make a middle-of-the-night run to the Miramichi.

The news of Leavitt’s death wasn’t unexpected, he said, but it was still shocking.

“The only consolation is I know he isn’t suffering any more,” The Splendid Splinter said, more than seven years ago.

Across the nation today, baseball fans are saying the same thing.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net, or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.