“He never mentioned baseball unless someone else brought it up. He was there to do a job. We all were. He was just one of the guys,” said astronaut and U.S. Senator, John Glenn, speaking of his fellow Korean War squadron mate, MLB Hall of Famer Ted Williams.
Imagine if Aarron Judge or Shohei Ohtani had to interrupt their baseball careers for military service—not just once, but twice! And imagine if they requested to fly fighter planes in combat. That is essentially what Ted Williams—whose mission was to become “the greatest hitter who ever lived”—experienced. After being drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 1942, Williams quickly became one of the MLB’s best hitters, but was called to serve as a Marine Corps aviator in World War II. He returned to the Red Sox in 1946, but six years later was called to serve in the Korean War—the Marine Corps didn’t realize they were calling up “Ted Williams the baseball player”!
Williams flew 39 combat missions, often as John Glenn’s wingman. “Ted got hit on one of his first missions,” said Glenn. “He was streaming smoke and fire from around the engine, which in a Panther [fighter jet] usually signaled an explosion that would blow the tail off.” He bellied in at 150 miles an hour, jumping out before the plane burned to a cinder.
Altogether Williams spent five MLB seasons serving in the military. But he nonetheless won two MPV Awards, hit 521 homers, and in 1941 was the last MLB player to hit .400 for a season. However, he likely would have exceeded 600 career home runs if he had not served in the military, and might even have approached Babe Ruth’s then record of 714. For his part, Williams never publicly complained about the time devoted to service in the Marine Corps. He did what he thought was his patriotic duty, saying “If I hadn’t had baseball to come back to, I might have gone on as a Marine pilot.”
William’s life mission was to be able to one day walk down the street and hear people say: There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived. Of this mission, Glenn—a lifelong baseball fan—said, “In my book he made that hands down.” He also praised Williams as an excellent pilot saying, “He gave flying the same perfectionist’s attention he gave to his hitting.”
