May 7: Who Ever Heard of Williams in Ebbets Field? Stan Musial is unfair to the members of the "Stan Musial Ebbets Field Right Field Wall Club." The members of that club are all the people who grew up as baseball fans watching Musial destroy the Brooklyn Dodgers by tattooing the right-field wall and screeen at Ebbets Field. Musial would drive the Dodgers up against the right-field wall in Ebbets Field and then go across the rivers to the Polo Grounds and devastate the Giants. At about the same time in baseball history Ted Williams would be doing many prodigious things to propagate the legend of Ted Williams. But when he'd come intoYankee Stadium with the Red Sox for a crucial series against the Yankees, somehow there would be a man on second base who needed to be driven home with a winning hit and Williams couldn't do it. Despite all the talk about the splendor of Williams as a hitter and all his achievements-personal achievements-he more often than not did not knock home that man from second base for the Red Sox.
Then Joe DiMaggio would get up for the Yankees when they had to have a run driven home and somehow DiMaggio would do what had to be done. It's all there in the recesses of memory; no forest of statistics or tall tales about the glory of Williams will erase the memory of the Red Sox runners who didn't score from second base. Now, though, in the midst of the Ted Williams Revival, Musial and DiMaggio are among those who have joined the chorus for Williams, World's Greatest Hitter. Classy guys that they are, they say, "Yes, Williams is the greatest hitter I've ever seen." The subject came up again when Musial dropped into New York for a lunch in which he was named as honorary director of the annual claybird shooting tournament promoted by the Winchester gun people. "Williams is probably the greatest hitter in baseball," Musial said. Just like that. Flatly. This was more than one charter member of the Ebbets Field Right Field Wall Club could stand. "Better than you, Stan? You really think he was a better hitter than you?" "He was a scientific hitter," Musial said. "Bully for science. But do you really believe that Williams was a better hitter than you?" "He was a great hitter. He studied the art. I was just a guy who did what came naturally. He liked to talk about it. I didn't like to talk about it so much." "But Stan, you have been saying he was a better hitter than you. I am speaking for all the people who rooted for the Dodgers and Giants and saw you kill our teams.I am speaking for the National League and I say you have no right to say he was better than you." Musial laughed. He always laaughs. Once, when somebody said to him, "Why are you always smiling,?" he answered, "If you hit .340 for 20 years, you'd smile all the time, too." "Well, Musial said-and the chuckle was there-"you know what I always say about Williams: 'He was good, too.' " It's not really a pressing question or anything but at a time and place when the Legend of Ted Williams is knocking home runners from second base like crazy, it seems a time for a member of the Ebbets Field Right Field Wall Club to put in a word for Stan the Man and Joltin' Joe. Musial has been named honorary dirctor of the Winchester claybird tournament because he is something of a shooter, or, as the gun people like to put it, a sportsman. Somebody recalled that Williams, also a sportsman, is a bit of a shooter. He used to go out to Fenway Park when it was empty and shoot pigeons. It once bothered the bird people enough to kick up a fuss. Williams was called, "The Rifleman." Musial said, "I suppose I could do that. I'd just go out to Busch Stadium to that statue of me that they built outside the park. That's where the pigeons hang out."
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15. Some Immortals 
