When Ted Williams came to Hartford his bat talked, he didn’t
Morgan G. Bulkeley Stadium, home to baseball in Hartford’s South End from 1921-52, “never saw so many cheap, ground-rule doubles,” The Courant reported. And so, it was also surmised, area schools never had a larger truancy problem on a Wednesday.
There was a correlation. Hartford area youths, tweens and teens were lined up outside the stadium with the break of day on April 13, 1949, some 75 years ago this weekend, presumably with the consent of their parents and understanding of teachers, a few of whom probably skipped school, too. The chance to see
Ted Williams at the apex of his career was not to be missed.
“Ted was mobbed by youngsters practically every time he took the field,” The Courant wrote. “And once he had to beat a hasty retreat to the infield before he was rescued. At the finish, he was engulfed by fans and had to fight his way into the dugout, clutching tightly onto his cap and glove.”
Williams, who was known to be aloof during this period of his life, disappointed autograph seekers, and most anyone longing for interaction, but he put on one spectacular show, blasting three home runs out of the ballyard and into the neighborhood, the first off the Braves’ Warren Spahn, a showdown of future Hall of Famers, the greatest hitter and winningest lefthander of all time.
The managers, Joe McCarthy of the Red Sox and Billy Southworth of the Braves, were also on Hall of Fame tracks and their teams were considered favorites to meet in the World Series, as they had narrowly missed an all-Boston Series 1948. This, the fourth of six “City Series” games to tune up for the season was staged in Hartford, the stadium not big enough to hold it. Quite a show, it played to a 10-10 tie before the game was called due to darkness.
The game was sold out weeks in advance, but kids came in droves, overwhelmed the bleachers and hundreds were allowed to line the outfield fences, the crowd totaling 8,648. Anything hit into the crowd was a double, and blustery conditions aided balls hit in the air to soar over the wall.
Spahn, who won 363 majorleague games, had pitched for the Hartford Chiefs in 1942, sent to the minors when the manager in Boston, Casey Stengel, told him he “had no guts.” After World War II, he established himself as a big-league star and, in 1948, teamed with Johnny Sain to pitch the Braves to the World Series, the thin rotation forever tabbed as “Spahn and Sain, then pray for rain.”
Williams, a big-leaguer since 1939, was a Triple Crown winner, an MVP, and owner of the last .400 season in the majors, .406 in 1941. A war and baseball hero, he led the Red Sox to the World Series in 1946, and to a one-game playoff with Cleveland in ’48, the game lost at Fenway in large part due to an aging McCarthy’s surprise pitching choice.
There were rumors of a “revolt” on the Braves, players disapproving of their manager, which Southworth vehemently denied to reporters at Bulkeley.
They won two of the first three City Series games, played elsewhere. Mostly regulars lineups started and played the entire game, including MVP Bob Elliott, Al Dark, Eddie Stanky for the Braves.
This was the backdrop when Williams, hitting third behind Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky, ahead of Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr, stepped in against Spahn in the first inning and used his legendary eye to work a base on balls. In the third, DiMaggio doubled, then Williams blasted one over the right field wall an onto George Street.
In the fifth, he singled to right, through the over-shifted infield invented to stop him. Veteran Vern Bickford replaced Spahn in the sixth, and Williams, unfurling his beautiful upper cut swing — they didn’t refer to launch angle back then — and drove one further than the last, over the right-center barrier. Williams did it again in the eighth, tying the game at 10, and then it got too dark to continue and the players hopped on buses to Union Station, where they had dinner on the train heading back to Boston.
The crowd was pleased to see UConn’s Walt Dropo play first base, singling and doubling for the Red Sox, though he was a year away from making the team and winning rookie of the year in 1950. “Dropo murders a strike,” McCarthy said, “what he must learn is not to chase bad balls.”
One kid did manage to snatch Dropo’s glove in the chaos after the game was halted. Despite the fans call for Hartford’s
Frank Quinn to pitch, McCarthy left him in the bullpen. Quinn debuted in Boston in May.
Often criticized for refusing to tip his cap, Williams didn’t on that day, either, despite the adulation poured all over him. Two Hartford policeman, on motorcycles, had to repeatedly ride onto the field to keep kids from swarming him as he went between left field and the dugout.
“But I am thinking about a hundred sadly disillusioned boys and girls who were needlessly brushed off by Williams a half hour or more before the scheduled starting time,” Courant columnist Bill Lee wrote. “He came in from the outfield, deaf to their pleas and sat dourly on the bench all by himself. With nothing whatever to do, it seemed he might have made a few kids happy. Babe Ruth would never have squandered such a chance.”
Later in life, Williams proved to be very natural and engaging with kids, especially in teaching them the art of hitting. But in
1949, this was Ted being Ted, his swing was signature. P.S. — He hit .343 in 1949, with 43 homers and 159 RBI, but the Red Sox lost the pennant to the Yankees on the last day of the regular season. Spahn won 21 games, but the Braves dropped to fourth, Southworth was fired and the team broken up.
More for your Sunday Read:
Henry Hughes scholarship
Young golfers in Connecticut will be getting some extra help in their development. First Tee Connecticut is launching a scholarship in the name of Henry Hughes, a Wethersfield man known for his decades of contributions to the sport. Hughes was involved for many years with the state’s PGA event, and was co-chairman of the Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford Open, as the tournament now known as the Travelers Championship was then called.
In 1984, Hughes moved to the PGA Tour as director of marketing for TPC Connecticut, and later became the PGA’s first director of marketing. As the years passed, Hughes played an important role in keeping the tour’s even in Connecticut whenever there was danger of it relocating. And he was an early advocate of the First Tee program.
The Henry Hughes First Tee – Connecticut Scholarship, will support educational needs of deserving participants, as well as selected programming needs of the organization in Greater Hartford. To donate, visit donatenow.networkforgood.org/firstteeconnecticut, write to 55 Golf Club Road in Cromwell or call 860-882-1660).
Sunday short takes
Luke Murray was the talk of the Final Four after UConn completed its romp, getting credit for designing and implementing the Huskies’ complicated offensive designs, heavily influenced by European basketball. The first high-major program that’s willing to try a first-time head coach could will be calling him.
By the way, the website Awful Announcing asked me last week if I’ve ever interviewed Luke’s father, Bill Murray. I gave them the honest answer. No, because I just don’t trust myself to refrain from quoting “Stripes,” “Meatballs” or “Caddyshack” and coming off like a complete doofus.
me … which is nice.
The Wolf Pack clinched an AHL playoff berth with a 5-3 win over Springfield at the XL Center Friday, drawing 8,090. The crowd, already in a celebratory mood, went wild when venerable goalie Louis Domingue scored his first career goal, an empty-netter. The Pack play Charlotte at home on Sunday at 3 p.m., finish the regular season next week,
MLB Pipeline has ranked the Yard Goats as the fourth best team in all of minor-league baseball, based in its roster, which includes 11 of the Rockies top 30 prospects and several firstround picks. One of those, Benny Montgomery, homered in the Goats’ first two home games this week. The Red Sox’s affiliate in Portland was ranked No. 3.
State soccer royalty is heading home to Connecticut. Captain and defender Mitchell Taintor, the grandson of legendary
UConn coach Joe Morrone, will be in with San Antonio FC to play Hartford Athletic next Saturday. Taintor’s mother, Melissa, is in the Connecticut Soccer Hall of Fame for her achievements with the UConn women’s team and his uncles, Bill and Joe Morrone Jr., played on UConn’s 1981 national champions. Mitchell Taintor, 29, born in Willimantic, played at E.O. Smith High in Storrs and at Rutgers.
Nihaal Kochar of Norwalk, is organizing a cricket match at
St. Luke’s, where he is a senior, on May 4. He plans a game played with a regulation (hard) ball between members of his
New Milford Cricket Club, and another played with a tennis ball between club members and St. Luke’s students. “Cricket in the U.S. is a growing sport, and I want to introduce as many people to the game as possible,” Kochar said. “I also want people to understand it, because people often say, ‘Isn’t cricket like baseball?’ In fact, cricket is very different. Baseball developed from cricket, and the first international game of cricket was played between the U.S. and Canada, and these countries are still rivals.”
Last word: A thought about the Kentucky men’s basketball coaching job. Fans there may have concluded that John Calipari’s five-star, one-and-done laden rosters didn’t work, and now they want things done the Dan Hurley/UConn way. … Right. Wait until the first one-and-done, five-star goes somewhere else and you’ll hear, “Cal never would have let him get away.” Hurley was wise to stay put.