The Teammates

Rating:
Summary: The Teammates, an excellent choice
Review: I grew up idolizing "The Kid" Ted Williams. He had a positive effect on my life, because of how I related to his childhood, his service to his country, how he played the game, and his focus on whatever he did. I had the privilege of meeting Ted Williams and the saying "never meet your heroes" was not true in this case. He was a real joy to visit with about baseball, shoeless Joe, hitting, fishing, and his favorite moments in baseball. After his death Teammates became available, so I purchased a copy, and found it to be an excellent book written by an author that keeps your attention all the way through it. The very people that knew Ted Williams intimately were his teammates, for they were and are friends for life; Dominic Dimaggio, Bobby Doerr, and Johnny Pesky. And from their perspective you learn more about an American hero, from those who knew him best. In a time of mourning Ted's death, you read this book to celebrate his life. This is a must read for any baseball fan. Thanks to David Halberstam for writing this tribute.

Sincerely

thekid09
Andy Anderson

Rating:
Summary: Amazing story
Review: This book is the story of 4 men that grew uo on the West Coast and then played almost their entre careers together in Boston. It covers the lives of Pesky, Doerr, DiMaggio and the late Williams.

As a Red Sox fan I was enthraled with the entire book and read it in a very short time. However this story is really about more than baseball, it's about friendship. A friendship that started on the baseball fields of the PCL and has lasted to this day.

I was also lucky enough to have my copy signed by Doerr :)

Rating:
Summary: Legends die hard...
Review: I expected this book to be about four baseball legends in the twilight of their lives, reflecting on their friendship while on a road-trip to see one of their dearest friends in his final hour. (Sounds like a chick flick!) That's nearly half the book, with the other half being the author's summaries of the four Red Sox legends' lives and careers. I'm a die-hard Red Sox fan and I read everything about them I can, but after a while all of the new books become repetitive. This book offers insight into the personal lives, thoughts and even childhoods of the four legends of Beantown baseball. This makes the book an invaluable addition to anyone's collection if you love baseball, team sports in general, or male bonding. (The author even squeezes in some fishing stories!) However, it's definitely a guy book, not the sort of thing you'll find on Oprah's book list.

Rating:
Summary: Thanks Mr. Halberstam . . .
Review: Halberstam again proves his keyboard is magic. Having fallen in love with Halberstam's writing with the Summer of 49 - my awe continues. This tiny story is as big as they get. Thanks so very much Mr. Halberstam.

Rating:
Summary: A touching story of enduring friendship
Review: A couple of old geezers take a road trip to visit another old geezer. That could accurately sum up the story behind "The Teammates" if need be. Some people might call this a baseball book, but really, baseball is only marginally discussed throughout the book (mostly when describing how the various players came up through the minors and joined the Red Sox). The book is more about the enduring friendship of four men who played baseball on the Red Sox together for approximately a dozen years, five decades ago.

It helps that two of the teammates (Doerr & Williams) happen to be Hall of Famers, and that Williams was the greatest hitter of all time. However, the bulk of the book is spent discussing how the men related with each other, and especially how Doerr, DiMaggio & Pesky coped with the larger-than-life personality of Ted Williams.

It is a touching book. For me, the most enjoyable aspects of Halberstam's baseball books were his discussion of the individual ball players and their personalities. That is practically all one gets in "The Teammates." For me, it was tremendously enjoyable & satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: We all miss Teddy Baseball.
Review: Wonderful to see the recollections of men who grew up playing sport for the enjoyment of others. Ted Williams is a legend. This book shed light on some of those he loved, trusted and respected. Insightful and easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: A story that the non-sports fan can enjoy.
Review: While enjoying this latest of David Halberstam's many books, I was conflicted as to how to understand Ted Williams. Is he the Nietzche "superman" or is he better explained by Alfred Adler's inferiority complex? Williams was by any measure mistreated by the Boston press, but his personality style can only be admired by those who did not have to live with him on a daily basis. To his credit, he seemed to admit his shortcomings later in life, but likely too late for him to change. The author notes the often cited analogies of the "Splendid Splinter" with "The Duke," John Wayne. But this was an analogy to Wayne's fictional, on-screen western characters, not Wayne the person. John Wayne was as sociable a person as one could find, and he could be brow beaten on the movie set (e.g., director John Ford).

The book, though, is not written to uphold Williams myths. Halberstam, through the lives of Williams' "boys" (Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr) tells an emotional story of friendship that has endured for decades despite various personalities, and living in different regions of the country. The "boys" are friends not simply because of their connection with Williams. It is easy to see that they would have maintained a connection because of who they are. They make this book so inviting to even the non-sports fan. Their stories would have been of interest if they had not been teammates, but former classmates, neighbors, or co-workers. The three all have an inspirational story to tell.

Of the four, however, I think that Williams is the only one who learned the least from their mutual experiences. I may not have the right to say that, but it's what I gathered from the book. His is a tragic story. He was so intent on always being right, that he refused to try to hit to left field when the St. Lois Cardinals gave him that opening during his only World Series appearance (he later shredded a letter of advice sent to him by Ty Cobb on how to beat the Cardinal shift). He was also less than devoted to becoming a better defensive player.

Don't take these comments the wrong way. I believe that Ted Williams is one of the great hitters of all time. I am sorry to not have had the chance to have seen him play. But I contrast his desire to become the greatest hitter of all time with the person whom I (and many others) consider as the greatest pitcher of all time, Sandy Koufax. Jane Levy's 2002 biography gives us a person who understood his trade as completely as Williams, but Koufax became the greatest without needing to achieve that goal to feel better about himself.

The most memorable part of the book was the mention of how Williams did not seem to know how to handle smooth times. No problem was so small, that he could not enlarge; or so large, that Ted could not make worse. Sadly, Williams' story is one of reaping what you sow. In death, two of his adult children have him frozen and perhaps headless, a victim of the pseudo science of mortuary cryogenics. He was not saved as a child of an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother, and he gained no freedom in death.

Rating:
Summary: Moving story about great players and even greater friends
Review: David Halberstam is one of the most gifted writers of this or any generation. While he is well-known and recognized for his cogent analysis of history and current events, there is still one area of writing which he always returns to because it has a special place in his heart. It is writing about baseball. 14 years ago, Halberstam produced one of the seminal works in baseball literature. "Summer of '49" is one of the most well received sports books in history. This story of the 1949 American League pennant race is one that even the youngest Red Sox or Yankees fan has hear of. It should come as no surprise that Halberstam would have developed a close bond with many of players he interviewed for that book. Then, it would seem logical that as Ted Williams, the legendary Red Sox slugger (and arguably the greatest hitter of all-time), was coming to the very end of his life, that Halberstam would see fit to write a fitting encomium to the life of 'The Splendid Splinter'. What he got was something that far surpassed even his original thoughts.

Inspired by the journey of Williams' former teammates Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio (and longtime Red Sox historian Dick Flavin) to visit their friend one last time, Halberstam came up with the idea for this book, "The Teammates". Not only were DiMaggio and Pesky (along with Bobby Doerr, who was unable to make the trip) longtime teammates of Williams', they were also lifelong friends. They were genuinely good friends who remained close long after their playing days were over. "The Teammates" became less about Williams himself (although he was still the focal point) and more about this wondrous friendship these men shared.

Halberstam found this friendship among the four men to be unlike anything ever witnessed in sports and, indeed, it comes across to the reader. Halberstam bounces back and forth from accounts of the final journey to visit Williams to tales from the earliest days when Williams and Doerr first joined the Sox in the late 30's. He recounts how they met, how their friendship blossomed, and how it endured through the years through the various successes and hardships each of them endured. There has truly never been a friendship quite like this one, and there will likely never be one again. That is just one factor of many that make "The Teammates" an amazing read.

Rating:
Summary: "My Guys"
Review: Ted Williams referred to his former Red Sox teammates, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Dom DiMaggio, as "My Guys." They remained friends for over sixty years. There's lots of baseball talk in TEAMMATES (Halberstam explains why the 1946 team that beat the Yankees by seventeen games never became the dynasty it seemed primed to be), but the main emphasis is on how these primarily blue-collar men provided emotional and professional support throughout the years.
The structure of the book revolves around a trip Pesky and DiMaggio made to Florida to see Ted just before he died (Doerr had to be with his wife, Monica, who had suffered two strokes). They spend two days with him during which time they talk baseball and DiMaggio sings to Ted "I Love Her but I Don't Know How to Tell Her" and "Me and My Shadow." DiMaggio asks Ted if he's getting the baseball scores, and when Ted tells him, "Nobody tells me anything," DiMaggio calls him every morning for the rest of Ted's life.
Although Halberstam provides a detailed account of Doerr's, Pesky's, and DiMaggio's family and professional life before and after baseball, he glosses over Williams's three failed marriages. He does try to explain Ted's seeming emotional instability by delving into his upbringing. Ted's father was an alcoholic and his mother was a religious zealot who cared more about the Salvation Army than her two sons. If not for baseball, Ted could have turned out like his brother, Danny, who was in and out of trouble with the law.
This is a sad book. Williams was a lonely man when he died and this was compounded by his son's efforts to profit on his father's fame, but there is some solace in his former teammates' loyalty.

Rating:
Summary: touching tale of life long friends
Review: This is the story of four friends,Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doeer,Dom Dimaggio, and Ted Williams. Ted is nearing the end of his life and his friends decide to see him one last time. So at the ages of 84 yrs old, or so, they drive from Portland Oregon to the Florida Keys remenicing of their invincable glory days with the 1940's Red Soxs. This is a story of friendship and the realization of mortality, not just anyones mortality, but the mortality of once athletic american icons.Parts of the book that I really enjoyed were the "pesky dinners" and Dom and Teds last parting(It was a real tear-jerker).And as a bonus, the book has good pictures and box scores of the four players and the teams of that time period.