The Kid

The Immortal Life of Ted Williams

By: Ben Bradlee Jr.

Narrated by: Dave Mallow

From acclaimed journalist Ben Bradlee Jr. comes the epic biography of Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams that baseball fans have been waiting for.

Williams was the best hitter in baseball history. His batting average of .406 in 1941 has not been topped since, and no player who has hit more than 500 home runs has a higher career batting average. Those totals would have been even higher if Williams had not left baseball for nearly five years in the prime of his career to serve as a Marine pilot in WWII and Korea. He hit home runs farther than any player before him -- and traveled a long way himself, as Ben Bradlee, Jr.'s grand biography reveals. Born in 1918 in San Diego, Ted would spend most of his life disguising his Mexican heritage. During his 22 years with the Boston Red Sox, Williams electrified crowds across America -- and shocked them, too: His notorious clashes with the press and fans threatened his reputation. Yet while he was a God in the batter's box, he was profoundly human once he stepped away from the plate. His ferocity came to define his troubled domestic life. While baseball might have been straightforward for Ted Williams, life was not.

The Kid is biography of the highest literary order, a thrilling and honest account of a legend in all his glory and human complexity. In his final at-bat, Williams hit a home run. Bradlee's marvelous book clears the fences, too.

Best on Teddy Ballgame that I have read.

Excellent comprehensive coverage from the beginning through the Cryonics stuff. Clear efforts made to not be biased and noting both praise and issues with Williams.

Great book

If you are a fan of Ted Williams or of baseball this is a great book to read / listen to. The story was wonderful and in depth. The narrator did a great job. I am very pleased to have learned so much about one of the all time great ball players and a complex man.

TED WILLIAMS

There is a whiff of guilt in spending 35 hours listening to Ted Williams’ life story. It is the same guilt one feels when watching a sport’s event, going to a movie, seeing a theater production, or visiting a museum. But, when good stories are well written, actors fully engaged and human interest stimulated, a viewer/listener’s time is pleasurably (if not) well spent. Ben Bradlee, Jr’s writing, Dave Mallow’s narration, and Ted Williams’ life story are near perfectly executed, thoughtfully engaging, and revelatory.

Ben Bradlee’s experience, as writer and editor of the Boston Globe, perfects the story of “The Kid”, the biography of baseball’s last full season “.400 plus” batting average player. Some say Williams is the best hitter ever to play. Dave Mallows narration sounds like a sports caster’s reflection on the mercurial personality of a baseball legend. The complexity of human nature is amplified in revelatory facts about a talented kid growing to manhood.

In the end, Bradlee’s adoration of Williams is uncloaked. Bradlee shows the generous nature of a complicated superstar, a human being that at once makes cold calculations about insults from the press while hiding personal contributions of time and money to childhood charities. Bradlee tells the story of a baseball player that rarely questions an umpire’s call; makes friends with working people rather than the rich and famous, and risks his life for his country in two wars when safer alternatives are available. “The Kid” is a pleasure to lovers of the game and to audio book listeners.

Very good sports bio

Ted Williams was an amazing baseball player and was a fascinating man with great qualities and severe flaws. He hated most sports writers, resented the fans, struggled with female relationships, ignored his family, LOVED baseball, and he did so much for children, especially suffering ones. This book tries to capture both good and bad. This was a long audiobook - about 35 hours. The writing here is great, and it is filled with interesting anecdotes, but I think that the author could have made this an even better book by editing it to closer to 25 hours. The beginning overview was way too long, making some that followed feel a bit repetitive. His playing career ends, and we still have a third of the book to go. While his post-playing days were interesting, that was the part I wanted to move through more quickly. All that said, I enjoyed this baseball biography thoroughly, and strongly recommend it to baseball fans. This was a 4.5 star book to me.

Beyond the Diamond

A friend of mine suggested that I should read about the legendary baseball player, Ted Williams. I'm not into the sport at all and reading about athletes or celebrities doesn't interest me. I'm not a media hound and can careless about stats, but reading about "The Kid" immediately caught my interest. I managed to finish the book in six days, while my friend has been pacing along for four months. Of course I'm getting the information in audio, but that is still over 35 hours of listening and paying attention.

Ted Williams could be the most interesting man in the world besides being the best player in baseball. I pretty much fell asleep when Ben Bradlee Jr. laid out his baseball career and stats, but I was so interested in his life. Like how he fought in two wars and became a pilot in the Korean War. He was a very generous to strangers, charities, and especially kids with Cancer and forming the Jimmy Fund, but he was a bastard with his wives and children.

His behavior is not uncommon with superstars even today. They treat strangers better than their own family, maybe it's a sense of pride or being in the public, but Ted Williams was a modest man when he gave so much to others in need.

The death of Ted Williams is a weird story. Unlike his wishes, the family decided to freeze his head in a cryogenics lab. He is frozen in time and maybe the Kid will be back and will be teaching on how to play ball. Maybe we will see him on a phone application and his mind will still be coaching.

At the end of his life, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the guy. His estate was ruin by his son, John Henry, which later died from leukemia. John Henry took advantage of his father's wealth and fame and tarnish his name, but like the great baseball player that his father once was, many fans will always see Ted Williams as "Splendid Splinter."

I highly recommend this book, even for those who doesn't like baseball like myself.

As another season of MLB just started, I wished that I was more involved with the sport, but I never had any interest in sitting through nine innings or keeping stats on my favorite player. I didn't even collect baseball cards when I was a kid, but I'm really glad that I read about Ted Williams way beyond the diamond.

There is one major flaw in the audiobook. If you decide to download this book from Audible, you can't download the pdf companion. I've contacted Audible and Hachette Audio and they haven't resolved this issue yet. The audiobook does not reference back to the pdf file, but it would been nice to see what was missing.