Poem Written on the Death of Ted Williams

Surely they must have had you
in mind when the Louisville Slugger Bat
was made, and you became the
Splendid Splinter, beginning
your career in 1936
(the same year I was born)
in the old Pacific Coast League
with the San Diego Padres
and later purchased by the Red Sox
only to be farmed out to Minneapolis
so furious with management that
you led the league in batting,
home runs, runs batted in
and runs scored
and few if any will recall
your wild side
the way you slapped yourself
on the ass after each home run
yelling, "Hi Ho Silver" as you galloped
around the bases like the thoroughbred
you were.

Your dream was to become the
greatest baseball player who ever lived
and in my mind you were
the last major league hitter to bat 400
making the Hall of Fame in 1966
while minor league poets were making the
hall of shame.

There will be some who argue
there were greater ballplayers
but who among them had
521 home runs despite losing
three seasons while serving
as a Navy pilot in WW 11
and almost two more years
as a Marine pilot in Korea
who was shot down and nearly killed
but kept it out of the press because
you felt you were only doing your job
if only poets could be so modest

And who else had the American League's
highest slugging average eight times
won the batting crown six times
led the league in runs batted in
and in home runs four times
and runs scored six times
capturing the triple crown twice
a feat only equaled by the great
Roger Hornsby
Named the league's
most valuable player twice
bowing out with 2, 654 hits
and leading the league in walks
eight times with a total of 2,019
second only to Babe Ruth

The man they called the
KID
even at the age of 39
when you became the oldest man
to win a batting title with
a 388 average.

written off in 1959, when after
a neck injury, you suffered
your only below 300 season
coming back the next season
and hitting over three hundred
with a home run as your bow out
in your final time at bat

You called the craft of hitting
an ART, and no poet or artist
was as good at his craft
as you were with yours
your mere stepping into the
batting box and taking
a practice swing was the
closest thing to perfection there was
But it wasn't just your greatness
as a ballplayer that made you my idol
it was the way you struck back
at the Fenway Park critics
who were as fickle as any art critic
you answered them taunt for taunt
and after being booed by the boo birds
you hit a home run and when they cheered
you ran around the bases giving them
the finger, now that's what I call style.

you who refused to tip his cap to the crowd
sensitive to an insensitive press
who didn't like it because you refused
to kiss their collective ass
who when a reporter asked a young catcher
being sent down to the minors
how it felt, you lifted him off the ground
pinned him to the wall, and asked him
how it felt.

The Kid, the Splendid Splinter
with the greatest eyesight in baseball
whose 20-10 eyesight could spot
the difference between a strike
and a ball within a decimal of an inch
whose stubborn spirit and iron will
fought heart, kidney, vision
and other ailments following a stroke
in 1992, taken by cardiac arrest
gone, but not forgotten by anyone
who ever picked up a baseball
and your autographed baseball card
is still in by childhood shoe box
not for sale just as you never were.