A kid talking about The Kid

By Mark Boudreau 08 Jul 2002

I don’t know if anyone around here knew or cared who Ted Williams was. Well, I knew and cared and I’m extremely sad that he has passed from this earth.

<p>When I was a kid, baseball was my life. Seriously. It was the only reason to keep living as far as I was concerned. Williams was Thor to my 10 year old eyes.  And one year, when we had learned in school how to properly write a letter, I wrote to him. I wish I knew what I wrote. All I know is that I told him how much I looked up to him, how much I loved his book (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671621033/qid=1026148635/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6265247-3896909">The Science of Hitting</a>), and that if he had a spare moment, could he send an autographed picture to my cousin who was sick and in the hospital. Well, he sent two autographs, one for my cousin and one for me.</p>

<p>That wasn&#8217;t much of a thing to do. But it meant the world to me and my cousin back then. My cousin really was sick at the time. And this man, this god amoung ballplayers, veteran of two wars, and one hell of a fisherman, he did something to make a couple of young kids happy and keep them from realizing that the ballplayers of today were mostly made up of overpaid cry babies (See Roger Clemens).</p>

<p>Thanks Ted.</p>