Here is perhaps he best paragraph ever written about an American athlete.
From "What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" Esquire Magazine, June 1986
"It was forty-five years ago, when achievements with a bat first brought him to the nation's notice, that Ted Williams began work on his defense. He wanted fame, and wanted it with a pure, hot eagerness that would have been embarrassing in a smaller man. But he could not stand celebrity. This is a bitch of a line to draw in America's dust."
RIP Richard Ben Cramer (June 12, 1950 -- January 7, 2013), a writing hero and someone I was lucky enough to call a friend.
