Williams remained a true hero

Boys become men, but never entirely. As kids, we have heroes, knowing little about them except that they are famous for whatever reason. With age and knowledge, many a childhood hero is left in the dust of time.

Ted Williams was my childhood hero and time never changed that.

He was the best player on my team, the Red Sox. He smote the enemy teams with his magic bat no matter what the shift they employed. He was there in the mind’s eye when one listened to the games on the radio, and there was that swing for the eye to see what the Sox showed up on TV.

The child’s bedroom wall was covered with newspaper clips of THAT swing. In games played on the neighborhood fields when growing up, I was always Williams, seeking that big hit, that long home run that would end the game in a blaze of glory.

Baseball and its stars can do that to kids. For seven months the game is there everyday. The box scores are there to read and the journey of a long season is a step, a game, played daily.

A child can latch on to a baseball name who becomes a hero and then live with that hero in serial form day after day.

That was what Williams meant to me as a child. If one can live and die sports as a youngster, and one can, the daily apprehensions and celebrations surrounding a hero become an integral part, a wonderful part, of childhood days.

When I got to the Major Leagues as a broadcaster in 1985, meeting Williams was a paramount goal. He hooked up with a baseball card company that asked me to be the host for a few receptions Williams was going to attend.

Oh yeah, this is good.

Davey Johnson, the former player and manager, was involved with the same company and knew of my Williams childhood. For the first reception in New York, Johnson said to me, “Why don’t you have the limo pick you up first and then go get Ted and you two can talk on the way.”

Oh yeah, this is getting better.

I did. I told Ted I was from Maine and loved to fish. I told him I was a friend of Bud Leavitt, former BDN sports editor, and Ted’s favorite fishing partner. Then I listened.

Ted extolled the virtues of this fly and that lure. He talked about fishing on Cold Stream Pond long before there were camps surrounding its shores. He talked about bat weight and balance, hitters and pitchers, wrists and hips. He talked. I listened. Gladly.

I got to introduce both Ted and Joe DiMaggio to the crowd at the All Star game in San Diego in 1992. I was a wreck waiting for the moment.

Williams joined fellow Hall of Famers Tom Seaver, Ralph Kiner and myself in the TV booth in New York a couple of years ago. We laughed, joked and teased one another. The child lives.

As a child Williams was my hero as a fantasy, larger-than-life ball player I idolized.

As an adult Williams was my hero as a man who had found his passion. He was not the perfect image of a childhood. Instead, he was so wonderfully human.

If one remains a hero after being found to be human, how magnificent. Ted, you did.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.