It’s about the only thing I have in common with the man, but growing up, I milked it.
I’d relish in asking others kids who they shared birthdays with:
“The guy who plays Magnum? That’s cool. He’s no Ted Williams.”
“The dude who invented the polio vaccine? I bet he wished he was Ted Williams.”
“The Dalai Lama? Never heard of him. Try Ted Williams.”
I was pretty sure this chronological coincidence somehow made me cool. I may have even used it as a pickup line in college. “Hey baby, ever see the Splendid Splinter?” (The line was followed by a slap upside the head, and the memory then gets a little fuzzy.)
At any rate, the man was my hero, and he stayed my hero until his death. That’s when I learned more about off-the-field Ted, and how he never quite qualified for father or husband of the year. And throwing around the name Ted Williams only elicited popsicle jokes and ghastly thoughts of a frozen head hidden in the desert. Suddenly, Ted meant a little less.
It all resurfaced this summer. To prepare for the NESN/WEEI Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, we were invited to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. We spoke with scientists, a thousand times smarter than me, who dedicate their lives to finding a cure — men and women chasing the most illusive of villains. We met nurses, and doctors, and remarkable little kids who have had to grow up faster than is fair. And we learned about Ted Williams.
If not for No. 9, the Dana-Farber of today may be a little less heroic. During his career, Williams raised an obscene amount of money for Dr. Sidney Farber’s then-fledgling institute. Even after he left the game, he never left clinic bedsides. And raising money for the patients was apparently never far from his heart — right up to the day that heart failed in 2002.
No one really knew much about The Kid’s efforts for the kids because he didn’t want it publicized. But it is published today on the Jimmy Fund’s Web site.
The lesson, I suppose, is that we don’t have to simply choose who we admire. We can choose what about them we admire.
So, on this Aug. 30, for the first time in a while, I’ll tip my cap to Ted. And I’ll be sure to tell all my friends about it, too.
