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The Greatest Hitter Ever Was Underrated

THE GREATEST HITTER EVER WAS UNDERRATED

By Charlie Gargiulo

My earliest TV sports memory is sitting with my late Uncle Leo watching the Red Sox sometime during the 1960 season. I was already playing baseball for a few years but the bug about following major league baseball players was just beginning to bloom as an 8 year old when I became indoctrinated into a life of misery as a Red Sox fan by my loving family until the Sox finally broke the curse in 2004.

My mom and dad lived with my Uncles Leo and Arthur in Dracut after moving there in 1956 to help take care of Uncle Leo who was disabled from a severe case of multiple sclerosis. Although my dad, mom and Uncle Arthur casually caught glimpses of the Sox on TV, it became a real bonding experience for me and Uncle Leo as I started to watch every game from start to finish with him in the summer of 1960. We normally didn’t talk too much because he was very depressed from his deteriorating condition as he became paralyzed from the waist down and would often go into violent spasms that would require an adult’s help to prevent him from falling out of his wheelchair. He was always nice to me but, after all, I was an 8 year old kid, and there wasn’t much we had in common to talk about. Until I started playing baseball and became a bigger fan than any of the adults around Uncle Leo.

Once I realized how damn good it felt to connect a bat with a ball in the sweet spot and watch it fly over the heads of the kids I was playing with, I became obsessed with the sport. Fortunately, my friends seemed to become fanatics at the same time I did as we spent every waking minute that summer finding some field to play in hitting balls so often we would eventually need to start putting electric tape around the peeling hide of the ball when the stitches started to fall out.

If other kids weren’t around then I’d use some old beat up baseball bat to whack rocks and stones in the field behind my house trying to hit them over the trees in the distance while broadcasting each tree I cleared as if I was a radio play by play guy screaming excitingly, “There’s a long blast by Gargiulo, going back, back, back…HOME RUN! Oh my, Gargiulo just blasted another one completely out of the ballpark!”

It was inevitable that once we started to play ball we discovered the game required learning a completely new foreign language and culture unique to baseball. It also did more to increase our math skills than anything our teachers taught us at school. Soon we went from doing simple multiplication tables to figuring out on our own how to do sophisticated divisions to calculate somebody’s batting average.

It didn’t take long for Uncle Leo to catch on that he had an aspiring pupil on his hand that he could mentor with his vast knowledge and experience of the game. And to share his memories with somebody who would truly appreciate them. So every night or weekend day when a Red Sox game came on the tube, I would sit near or lie on the ground next to my Uncle Leo and watch every game with him, while he explained the nuances and strategies and told me stories of the legends he saw play before he joined the Army in World War II. His favorite story was seeing the Babe himself hit a home run well up into the bleachers at Fenway Park on a line drive and how he never heard a bat make an explosive sound like that before or since.

But my favorite and first vivid memory watching baseball with him was when he got my attention by stating very seriously one time, when Ted Williams was coming to bat while they were playing a game in Cleveland, “I want you to pay attention and try to remember this so you can tell your kids and grandkids that you actually saw Ted Williams live on TV. To let them know you were lucky enough to see the greatest hitter who ever lived.” Then, almost like in a movie, Ted connected on the next pitch and hit a home run. AND later hit another one out in the same game! Each time Ted hit the home run, Uncle Leo looked at me, did a small up and down nod of his head with a slight grin, then shakily pointed his hand to the screen and said, “See, now don’t forget you actually saw him.”

Funny how life works, here I am 65 years later at 73 and I have always maintained that special memory as the first baseball TV moment that has stayed with me. Followed that October by my first World Series and watching Bill Mazeroski’s game-winning home run in Game 7 for the Pirates against the Yankees. Yet, although everybody who knows anything about baseball knows that Ted Williams was one of the game’s greatest hitters, I am just beginning to understand that as great as we think he was, he was even better. In fact, after looking a little deeper in the stats, I am convinced that Uncle Leo was correct. I saw the greatest hitter who ever lived, not the greatest all around ballplayer for sure, BUT the GREATEST HITTER.

Sure, every baseball fan knows he was the last player to hit over .400 and some may even be aware that he holds the all-time Major League on base percentage record at .482 and that he generated his career totals of 521 home runs and .344 batting average while missing nearly FIVE of his peak athletic years serving in World War II and the Korean War. Another little known stat is that while everyone knows Joe DiMaggio had the longest hitting streak in MLB history, how many know Ted Williams has the longest streak of reaching base with either a hit or a walk at 84 games?

Okay, I also understand that for the first part of his career, his numbers can be questioned because he played when baseball was not integrated. However, unlike the great white hitters like Ruth, Foxx, Gehrig, Cobb, etc. and the great Negro League hitters like Gibson, Charleston, Leonard, etc. who only played against the best of their own race, Ted Williams final years are what blew me away when I examined them.

Let the numbers speak for themselves. I’m going to compare the LAST 6 years of Ted Williams’ career between the years 1955-60 when he was playing between the advanced ages of 37 and 42 years of age and compare him with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Henry Aaron during those same years, when they were playing in their athletic prime years. Mickey and Willie were between 24 and 29 years old and Henry was between 21 and 26 years old. I have averaged out over that six year span each of their batting averages, on base percentages, slugging %, OPS,  OPS+ and home run per at bat. To highlight how amazing these stats are I list in bold who has the highest of each category. Out of the 6 categories, Ted Williams leads in 5 of them.

Thanks Uncle Leo. I remember.

B.A.                  OBP         SLG         OPS       OPS+     HR per AB

Ted Williams                  .331                   .464          .615         1.078       190           13.76

Mickey Mantle                 .315                   .436          .608         1.047       185           13.2

Willie Mays                    .321                   .393          .594         0.987       162           16.4

Henry Aaron                  .323                   .375          .574         0.949        158           17.7

Living Madly: Wheel of Fortune

“Of the Fates of Illustrious Men” by Eitenne Colaud. Photo credit Wikicommons

Living Madly: Wheel of Fortune

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

When most Americans hear the term “Wheel of Fortune,” the long-running television game show is probably what comes to mind. But the original Wheel of Fortune, from which the show took its name, dates back to the ancient Romans. Known as Rota Fortunae in Latin, the Wheel of Fortune was named for Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fate.

The ancient Romans believed Fortuna possessed a wheel that, depending on where it stopped when she spun it, had the power to bring an individual, or even an entire society, prosperity, joy, sorrow, or hardship. Every time Fortuna turned her wheel, lives were subject to transformation. The poor might become rich, the misfortunate lucky. Healthy people could become ill, the sick miraculously cured.

The wheel’s stopping point was determined solely by chance. Even Fortuna couldn’t control or predict where it would land.

Representing the unpredictability of fate in Western culture for thousands of years, the Wheel of Fortune has been used to explain why terrible things happen to good people, and why people who commit crimes and other malicious acts sometimes prosper.

For centuries, the Wheel of Fortune has been appeared in a variety of Western literature. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character Polonius curses Fortuna and her wheel in frustration, conveying the idea that our destinies are determined by fate, and that any sense of control we might have over them is an illusion:

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel
(2.2.493-495)

Created in the early 13th century, the rose window in the Basel Cathedral in Basel, Switzerland, depicts Fortuna and her Wheel of Fortune. The image shows the goddess spinning the wheel blindfolded, indiscriminately bestowing good and bad luck upon sinners and the virtuous alike.

In the contemporary world, the Wheel of Fortune is often associated with gambling, especially with the roulette wheel and dice. Although they might not realize it, gamblers’ personification of luck as a woman, as in Frank Sinatra’s song Luck be a Lady, harkens back to Fortuna.

The Wheel of Fortune is also seen in the modern tarot deck. Because no one can escape fate, the illustrations that commonly appear on the card feature a king, sometimes represented by a lion, perched on top of the wheel.

Contrary to what most people might think, when this card appears it’s often interpreted as a positive sign. It tells us to have faith, to do our best to embrace the uncertainty that comes with change because new circumstances often usher in unexpected opportunities. Even if we don’t understand why things are unfolding the way they are, even if they frighten or intimidate us, this card lets us know that everything will eventually make sense.

The beginning of 2025 finds my life at a crossroads. My husband was laid off from his job at the end of September. Where he will end up, and what our fate will ultimately be, is still unknown.

Strangely, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been coming across reminders of the Wheel of Fortune. It appeared face up in front of me one day when I dropped a deck of tarot cards on the floor. An image of the painting Wheel of Fortune by 19th century British painter Edward Burne-Jones showed up in my Facebook feed as part of an advertisement one day. And last week, when my husband and I walked into a restaurant, an old episode of Wheel of Fortune, hosted by Pat Sajak, was on television in the bar.

These events could be coincidences, of course. But I prefer to see them as hopeful signs.

The phrase “fortune favors the bold” also comes from the ancient Romans. The line, audentes Fortuna iuvat in Latin, first appeared in Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid, written sometime around 19 BCE. Today, it’s used to express the idea that successful people are often those who work hard and take risks, who refuse to give up when things don’t work out the first, third, or even the fifteenth time.

I’ve been around long enough to know that it’s this last part that matters most.

The Wheel of Fortune is forever spinning. No matter how wild the ride, those who somehow manage to hang onto its spokes are the ones who will be ready when the wheel eventually turns in their favor.

###

Emilie-Noelle Provost (she/her) is the author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. Visit me at emilienoelleprovost.com.

Two Poems by Jacquelyn Malone

Late Afternoon on Palmer Street in Spring

By Jacquelyn Malone

A business meeting over a glass of wine,

as papers on the outdoor table lift briefly

in a soft breeze.

Sudden “Ohs,” then laughter as colleagues dig in again

to proposals, budgets,

wine.

A car rolls over cobblestones, the rumble

like excited kids popping bubble wrap.

An amorous pigeon coos from the window ledge

of an ornate brick building.

A grandmother smiles as she cheerfully pushes a baby carriage;

the baby laughs and reaches toward a puppy

wriggling against its leash

to reach the baby.

Two workers leave an office building early,

ready for the joy of more light,

more warmth,

more air filled with the fragrance

of hyacinths and crabapples trees.

 Patrons begin to fill the tables of two facing bistros.

Not a single face looks glum.

 ****

The Gulf Between

By Jacquelyn Malone

Across the river in the fog, someone

is walking, a phantom blip in the pale gray air.

Why does someone — man? woman? — walk

a park service trail — a pleasure path —

in the chilled foggy dusk?

There are no streetlamps.

The walk leads nowhere

that there aren’t shorter ways to go.

A quarter mile across the river that inscrutable figure

walks clock-like and unhurried,

like a shadow in a film noir — the hunter? or the hunted?

Someone who likes seclusion?

A depressive seeking oblivion, someone

for whom this path is a daily ritual?

The dot-sized cranium is sealed and off-limits.

If that figure could see me,

a face in one dimly lit window

in one in a hundred condominium units along the river,

what reason would that mind assign to my stare?

The figure keeps on moving,

disappearing from my view.

****

Jacquelyn Malone worked as Senior Web Writer/ Editor at IBM and Lotus Development Corp., as an adjunct taught both technical and scientific writing and editing at Northeastern. She also writes poetry and has won a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship Grant in Poetry, is the author of a chapbook titled All Waters Run to Lethe, and has been published in numerous journals, including Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Northwest, and Lowell Review. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and have appeared on the website Poetry Daily.

Inauguration Plans – Grandiose Simplicity or Simple Grandiosity?

Inauguration Plans – Grandiose Simplicity or Simple Grandiosity? – (PIP #53)

By Louise Peloquin

Two articles about planning Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration report the flip from desired simplicity to imposed grandiosity.

A hundred years later, will the inauguration be grandiosely simple or simply grandiose?

L’Etoile – February 11, 1925

Simplicity of the Presidential Inauguration

     The ceremonies of the installation of the new President will be of elegant simplicity, at the request the President himself – There will not even be an official ball at the White House – Taking the oath and a short procession.

     Washington – Complying to President Coolidge’s wishes, yesterday the March 4th Presidential Inauguration Committee, on the motion of its president William L. Galliher, canceled all appropriations voted for the official celebration of the event.

     The President will pronounce his inaugural address on the west side of the Capital and will be as brief as possible, according to Mr. Coolidge’s spokesperson. (1) In keeping with the new economic savings program, the project to build a magnificent courtyard of honor at Lafayette Square would have cost $28,000. Fireworks have also been canceled for the evening.

     The official inauguration ceremony of President Coolidge and of vice-president Dawes is now simply reduced to taking the formal oath of office at the Capital and to a procession of troops and of several State governors, a parade to last an hour.

     Galliher declared that he felt almost constrained to rescind the vote, taken weeks ago, on the inauguration ceremonies. He said that patriots in Washington have already contributed $140,000 to the guarantee fund even though they had been repeatedly warned that this sum would probably never be spent. The money will be reimbursed to the donors.

     The Committee will nevertheless allow building a stand and is ready to rent space along the procession route on the boulevards.

     State governors, out of respect for the President’s wishes to have the least ostentatious ceremony possible, will not travel in great number to Washington. Of the 22 governors who, thus far, have responded positively to the invitation, 19 have refused to participate in the procession. The others will have a very modest escort. 

     The presidential inauguration ceremonies will not even include an official grand ball, a tradition for this event.

**********

L’Etoile – Front page, March 2, 1925 

     THE INAUGURATION WILL BE GRANDIOSE

     Mr. Coolidge will bend to the whims of the organization committee – The ceremonies are sure to be impressive – Huge preparations under way – The parade is sure to be long – The President’s suite.

     President Coolidge yielded to Committee wishes and his installation will not be as simple as he had originally desired.

     Stands are set up along Pennsylvania Avenue and another is now being constructed in Lafayette Square directly in front of the White House, with the President’s permission. All of the stand seats were reserved promptly at good prices.

     We calculate that it will take three hours to review the inauguration parade from the stand in front of the White House where the Chief Executive, Mrs. Coolidge, family members and guests will be placed.

     The President has also allowed local high school cadets to participate in the ceremonies. They will serve as ushers at the reviewing stands.

     G.A.R. veterans in the parade

     Another eleventh-hour change in the program allows the Great Army of the Republic to be represented at the parade. Since the ranks of these veterans are becoming scarcer as time passes, everywhere across the nation, these men who helped save the Union are invited to take part in the parade. The White House gave its favorable response yesterday. Veterans will parade in automobiles and will serve as part of the President’s escort.

     All of the Army and Navy divisions will be represented in the inauguration parade. Some detachments have already arrived from Camp Meade.

     The weather forecast announces pleasant cool temperatures for next Wednesday.

The President’s Suite

     When the President takes the oath of office, he will be accompanied by family members and by Mrs. A.I. Goodhue, Mrs. Coolidge’s mother who arrived last Friday. Colonel John C. Coolidge, the President’s father, and John, the President’s son, will be in Washington tomorrow. John will arrive from Amherst College in the company of college president Mr. Olds.

     Dr. George T. Harding, late President Harding’s father, made it known that it was impossible for him to accept the President’s invitation to be a White House guest during the inauguration.

     Although the President will not attend the charity ball, his aide-de-camp Colonel Sherrill announced that it would be one of the grand social events to take place in the capital.

     Air Force General Mitchell acted as ball committee president but left this post, probably because of accusations against him of insubordination. Consequently, Colonel Sherrill replaced him.

     THE ARRIVAL OF GENERAL DAWES

     General Charles G. Dawes, vice-president elect, arrived in Washington late yesterday afternoon with his wife, their two adopted sons and Francis J. Kilkenny, his long-time personal assistant in public and private affairs. 

     The General did not envisage taking on a task or traveling without Kilkenny….He accompanied General Dawes in France during the Great War. He was his right-hand man when the General initiated the national budget system at the request of President Harding. When Dawes was running as candidate for vice-president, Kilkenny was his personal assistant during the campaign. Kilkenny will remain in Washington until General Dawes takes the direction of the Senate and then will return to Chicago to manage General Dawes’s private affairs. 

     Ross Barclay, member of the Associated Press legal staff, will serve as the new vice-president’s secretary….

    When Calvin Coolidge swears on his family Bible to faithfully fulfill his duties and functions in front of Chief Justice Taft, he will have been the first President to take the oath from one of his predecessors.

**********

THE CROWD WILL BE AS LARGE AS USUAL  AT THE INAUGURATION

     The crowd expected to gather in Washington for President Coolidge’s March 4th inauguration will be as immense as that of other large crowds assembled in the Capital for similar ceremonies.

     Despite the desire for simplicity expressed by President Coolidge, people are hurrying just as much to see the historic event….

     This year, planes will not fly above the city of Washington during the inauguration because the Secretaries of the Army and Navy forbade it given that the noise of the planes had drowned out President Harding’s voice at the Yorktown ceremonies.

     General and Mrs. Dawes will parade in an automobile from the White House to the Capital behind Mrs. Coolidge, escorted by a squadron of cavalry. 

    **********

THEY WILL  ATTEND THE INAUGURATION

     Representative Jewett will head the Lowell delegation.

     Lowell will send a delegation of several of its Boston legislative Representatives to Washington to attend the official installation of President Coolidge on Wednesday March 4th. Representative Victor-F. Jewett, Speaker of the House, an intimate friend of President Coolidge when the latter was Representative, Speaker, Lieutenant-governor and Governor, will lead the delegation. It will be composed of seven members belonging to the Republican and Democrat parties.

     The Republican delegates are: Representative Henri Achin Jr., Senators Charles P. Howard and Walter Pentam. The Democrat delegates are: Charles H. Shower, Daniel F. Moriarty and Patrick F. Nestor.

     All will attend the lunch which will take place at the White House. They will remain in Washington almost all week. (2)

 ****

1) Calvin Coolidge’s inaugural address was the first to be broadcast nationally by radio.

2) Translations by Louise Peloquin.