Ted the Kid

Ted the Kidis unlike any Ted Williams biography in the last 20 years, maybe ever. Ted the Kid is an intimate, honest portrait of the American icon written by John Holway, a man who knew Williams for more 25 years and who was a trusted friend.

John Holway has been researching and writing about baseball for more than 60 years. He has 10 published books on the Negro Leagues, including the groundbreaking Blackball Starsand award-winning books on World War II. But none of Holway's literary accomplishments is as important or as compelling as his decades-long work on The Splendid Splinter, consolidated into a 3-book collection to be published by Summer Game Books.

Ted the Kid covers the life of Williams from his youth in San Diego, through his brash entrance into professional baseball when he was full of vinegar, to use his words, through a riveting day-by-day account of his miraculous 1941 season, when he etched his name onto the first page of the annals of baseball history. Ted the Man and Ted the Legend, volumes 2 and 3, will follow in 2019.

Few writers ever had access to Ted Williams like Holway, and few biographies of the legend, if any, approach the insight and true details of Williams the ballplayer and Williams the man. Holway explodes myth after myth about The Kid that he was surly towards the press, a me-first teammate and person, a lousy fielder. (Rumors of his womanizing and use of foul language are not as exaggerated!)

Through numerous interviews with Williams family (who also provided access to dozens of never-before-seen photographs), his teammates, and with Ted himself, Holway paints a complete portrait of the profoundly complex man whose legend has only grown since his death in 2002, though we are no closer to knowing the real Williams, until now.

Ted the Kid rewrites an important chapter in baseball history. It is a book that could only have been written by John Holway, and could never be written again.