My Turn at Bat :: English Literature

My Turn at Bat Book Review My Turn at Bat: The Story of My Life, written in 1969, could be the name of any number of hitters that have played the game of baseball. It could even be a metaphor for something that doesn’t even relate to the game of baseball. But that’s not the case here, this book is about, arguably the greatest hitter to ever play the game. This book is about the only player to ever hit .400. The only man to be inducted into seven different hall of fames. This book tells the story of Ted Williams through his eyes, the way he lived on and off the field. The author John Underwood does a good job in terms of letting the reader get a first person point of view when it comes to the life of this Boston Red Sox legend. The book first starts out with Ted Williams stating that, â€Å"I’m glad it’s over†, he then goes on to explain what he means by this. Williams says that he is so grateful for what baseball has done for him as a person but he was glad to be out of the game as a player. He tells the reader through out the book that if he could go back to when he was 18 or 19 years of age he wouldn’t do it because knowing now what was in store for him. He says that he had to deal with so much physical pain, the weight of the world being on his shoulders, and last but certainly not least the Boston reporters. At that point in his life, Ted Williams had finished playing Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox and moved on to managing the Washington Senators, a move that he wasn’t all that comfortable with, but was willing to try. This book is a constant one-way conversation with the reader. It seems that is just the way Williams wanted it to be, just so he could tell the story without any interruptions. Williams’s talks about how he always wanted to be the greatest hitter of all time through out the book. He says that a man needs to have a goal for a day, a lifetime and his was to hear people say, â€Å"there goes Ted Williams the greatest hitter of all time†. Williams also talks about how his 22 years of playing the game were the best years of his life but they were also some of the unhappiest. Through out his time as a professional ball player, he felt that people didn’t like him,