MONTCLAIR, N.J. (AP) At 81, his sight failing, confined to a wheel chair,
Ted Williams still loves to talk hitting.
At a screening at the Yogi Berra Museum for a documentary film on Hank
Greenberg, which begins a two-week run today at the Film Forum in Manhattan,
Williams was still wondering about the art he just about perfected.
"What was it like to hit against Sandy Koufax?" he asked Ed Kranepool. And
before Kranepool could answer, Williams did. "Threw overhand, didn't he?" he
said.
Williams remembered talking hitting with Greenberg at the 1940 All-Star
Game. Williams was 22, in his second major league season. Greenberg was 29, an
established slugger.
"I got there early," Williams said. "I wanted to see everything, to see
it all. It was my first time."
When he got to the hotel lobby in St. Louis, he had company.
"Who was in the lobby but Hank Greenberg?" Williams said. "He got there
before I did."
Greenberg was already one of baseball's best hitters. He had driven in 183
runs in 1937, one short of Lou Gehrig's AL record. The next year, he hit 58
home runs, two away from Babe Ruth.
So there they sat in the hotel lobby, two sluggers trading tips, talking
about the difficult task of hitting a baseball. The next year, Williams batted
.406, baseball's last .400 hitter.
Greenberg's son, Steve, once baseball's deputy commissioner, said his father
was beloved by teammates, but often from a distance. "Dad was a loner," he
said. "He was revered, but from afar. Elden Auker had tears in his eyes the
first time I saw him after dad died. He said, `I loved your dad.' So did Birdie
Tebbetts. He was a team leader."
Once when the Tigers forced Greenberg to the outfield to make room for Rudy
York at first base, he recruited Barney McCoskey to help him learn the
position. When he succeeded, Greenberg bought his teammate a tailored suit to
thank him.
Kranepool was at the screening because, like Greenberg, he graduated as a
slugging first baseman from James Monroe High School in New York City before
going on to a major league career with the New York Mets.
By the time Kranepool was a prospect, Greenberg was a front office executive
with the Chicago White Sox. "He scouted me," Kranepool said. "But he didn't
sign me."
It was the White Sox who gave Greenberg some of his toughest moments,
showering him with insults because he happened to be Jewish. Greenberg shrugged
off most of the abuse. He was accustomed to defending his religion and once got
into a spring training fight on a bus with Detroit pitcher Rip Sewell.
Greenberg often acknowledged the insults. "It was a constant thing," he
said in an interview shown in the film. "I think it was a spur for me to do
better. Not only were you a bum. You were a Jewish bum."
But one summer day, the invective became too much to endure. Del Baker, a
coach with the Tigers at the time, related the story to Williams.
"I heard about an incident," Williams said. "When he first came up, there
were remarks made. One loudmouth wouldn't let up. Hank took a lot of abuse. At
the end of the game, he went into their dressing room.
"He said he'd heard the remarks. He even repeated two or three of them.
Then he said, `If you've got a gut in your body, you'll stand up.'
"You know who stood up? Nobody."
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