SAN DIEGO – It’s early on a weekend morning, the perfect fishing hour, or maybe the time of day when a California kid runs off to a park to play baseball.

It’s also the hour when Ted Williams is freshest – his eyes bright, his robust voice delivering story after story.

He remembers the first playground home run he hit, the first time he caught a barracuda and where he used to go rabbit hunting more than 60 years ago when his native San Diego was a sleepy Navy town, not an urban sprawl.

Williams is 77, and four strokes since 1991 have slowed him physically, forcing him to walk with a cane and affecting his peripheral vision.

As he sits for an interview in his hotel suite, the Hall of Famer doesn’t move his left arm, the one that powered perhaps the greatest pure swing in baseball. He has limited mobility in his left shoulder, which he broke in a fall nine months after suffering a major stroke in February 1994.

Yet it’s immediately evident that Teddy Ballgame’s mind remains clear, and he’s passionate about his favorite subjects. As the sun pokes through the fog and shines through the picture windows behind Williams, he mentions that he’d love to be able to wade in a stream again.

“I can’t walk as far as I wish I could, and this year is the first year that I have not gone fishing in 50 years,” Williams said.

“I can see well enough that I can go through this room, but I kind of have to watch my walls and all of that. But I’m good. I’m getting along. It kills me to think that I might never go fishing, but I reflect right back to my fishing life which has been an absolutely sensational part of my life.”

Although Williams achieved his fame playing for the Boston Red Sox, it all started in San Diego – the baseball, the fishing, the hunting.

Tuesday night, Williams will be honored by the San Diego Hall of Champions as its Star of the Half Century. The requisite stats will be recited: 521 home runs, a .344 career batting average, six AL batting titles, two MVPs and a .406 average in 1941, the last major-leaguer to bat above .400.

Williams will reluctantly accept the award.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“I know what I accomplished, but I know of other accomplishments,” Williams said, referring to the fact that the Hall of Champions also will honor a disabled athlete, this year a wheelchair tennis champion from Oceanside. “I think one of the greatest things I ever heard of in my life was the recognition of some of these athletes that win outstanding athletic achievement in a wheelchair.”

Williams’ son, John Henry, said he’s noticed something about his dad since the strokes.

“He’ll comment on little babies he sees, or little children, how beautiful they are. I’d never seen that before,” John Henry said.

When Williams was in therapy, he was particularly touched by a little girl who will have to spend her life in a wheelchair.

“That helped him to get through it, not to worry about himself,” the younger Williams said.

“If you go through the history books, he did a lot for the Jimmy Fund,” he added, referring to the longtime official charity of the Red Sox, which helps children afflicted with cancer. “People don’t know how much (being affiliated with) the Jimmy Fund did for him.”

Williams won’t visit his old North Park neighborhood while he’s here, but he has gotten together a few times with some of the San Diego Padres at the home of owner John Moores. Naturally, the subject of hitting came up. Although he could take only a half swing, it had an impact.

“His eyes just lit up when they got a bat in his hand,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “This man has a passion for hitting like I’ve never seen before. He loves to challenge you. He has a reason for everything he talks about.

“I thought he looked good. He has such as presence in a room, anyway.”

Williams also planned to meet with Tony Gwynn, a six-time NL batting champion whose .394 average in strike-interrupted 1994 was the highest in the majors since Williams’ .406.

“He and I were different-type hitters, but boy, I’ll tell you, he can get hits,” Williams said. “I’ll have a good time talking to him. First thing I’m going to say is, `Well, you did it again. You led the league again.’ ”