Through the early weeks of winter, the Boston Red Sox talked and talked of trading away Ted Williams. All they wanted in exchange was "the guts of a ball club," Lou Boudreau said with simple elegance. Now at long last a deal is in the works, but the Sox are taking no bows for it. When and if Williams rejoins the Marine Corps, all they'll get out of it is an aching void.

It has been a sorry year for hitters. Tommy Henrich, Charley Keller, Bobby Doerr, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Louis -- they're all gone, and now apparently Williams is on his way.

It would he difficult to overestimate Boston's loss if Williams goes. Hitters like him cannot be replaced because there aren't any hitters like him at large. In the American League there aren't any hitters like him, period.

Because of a somewhat capricious temperament, Ted has always been the subject of adverse criticism, even when he was batting a dandy little .406. There have always been some ready to argue that the Red Sox would be better off without him, but that is an argument which neither the pitchers nor the managers of other American League clubs have espoused.

There's a line in his record which reflects the opinion that pitchers have of him. It reads: "Broke major league record for most consecutive years, 100 or more bases on balls." As for the managers, when Williams comes to bat and they wrench the defense all out of shape to confound him, they don't do it just to tease.

There was a well-remembered game last summer when Paul Richards, the White Sox manager, paid Williams as pretty a compliment as a hitter could receive. A right-hander was pitching and winning for Chicago when Williams, who'd already made several hits, came up for the last time. Richards shifted his pitcher to third base just long enough for a left-hander to come in and retire Ted, then the original man returned to the mound and finished the game.

Richards was openly declaring that he considered his pitcher good enough to whip the rest of the Red Sox, but not good enough to face Williams. Obviously Richards agrees that Ted's departure would be good for the Sox, provided the sox are white.

Ted passed his thirty-third birthday in October. It was fourteen years ago that he made his first trip to a Boston training camp. In his only full season of professional baseball he had caused some Pacific Coast League pitchers to wake up screaming in the night, but his talents as an outfielder had not been polished to a dazzling brilliance.

In fact, the representative of one major league team had watched him play for San Diego and shuddered violently. "He's another Buzz Arlett," the man said, employing a standard of comparison that still causes strong men to turn pale, although it has been many years since the muscular Buzz plodded across major league outfields.

Anyhow, Boston was taking a chance and the kid was bound for Florida with several other players. Al Horwitz, a Philadelphia baseball writer visiting the camps, encountered them on a train and sat down to chat. They talked, naturally, about hitting. "You'll see some pretty fair hitters with the Red Sox," Horwitz said, "Joe Cronin, Mike Higgins, Jimmy Foxx -- "

Young Williams said he'd already seen some good hitters, out on the Coast.

"I know," Horwitz said, "but wait till you see Jimmy Foxx hit." The rookie gazed out the window dreamily. His fingers gripped the handle of an imaginary bat.

"Wait," he said, "until Foxx sees me hit."

Nobody had to wait long. Ted's lifetime average against major league pitching is barely under.350. It's anybody's guess how high it might be if he have played through World War II and swung against the guys they were using instead of pitchers in those years. He was twenty-four years old and at his loftiest peak as a batsman when he went into the service for three years.

If he has to serve seventeen months this time, he'll be in his thirty-sixth year before his hitch is finished. By that time, he could be finished, too. Not necessarily, however. John Mize celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday the other day. He celebrated by signing a contract with the Yankees.

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