Her country club membership number is 9. Soon Ted gave them praise that would never reach their ears. Ted Williams tried to follow that advice. Everyone who knew Ted Williams knows that his daughter's going to Duke would mean more to him than his home runs and war medals combined. The century-old embroidery charity at war with its members and the lengths they will go to save it, This weeks File on Hidden Homicides is just the start for Tortoise: we are going to keep investigating, scrutinising the data and calling for change in the way that domestic abuse is policed. Her mom stabilizes, and Claudia heads home. For years, she'd thought her father had stopped maturing when he became famous at 20, and now they'd both reached his emotional age, equals and running buddies for the first time. Any sport, anything really whether it be tying a fly, he wanted to be the best. "You have heavy burdens you're still carrying," he said. No one is laughing now, and Claudia reaches for Eric's hand from time to time. Doctors told her there's enough genetic material for one chance at insemination, and as long as it remains frozen, some part of her brother, and her father, remains alive with it. "I surpassed John-Henry quicker because I got away," she says.She never asked for anything. I'm hurting. "She asks him again about creating and raising Ted Williams' grandchild. All they had was each other, and both longed to decode their dad, and maybe find themselves in the process. John-Henry Williams, a 6-foot-5 ringer for his handsome father, had long lived in the zeitgeist as a bumbling son who took and took without ever standing on his own. As she parks her car and goes into the house, she's deciding whether to share an idea that has been gaining momentum and fervor. ", Just a part of the collection of artifacts fills a storage room to its 10-foot ceiling. Henry Leutwyler for ESPN Magazine, Her husband, Eric Abel, comes home from running errands. Trembling as she held the poster in her hand, she finally read the words she wanted so badly to hear as a child: "To my beautiful daughter. Claudia tried to get him to release the cat, but he refused to listen. He'd been raised by an erratic and absent mother. She never saw her father's body, and nothing forced her to really accept his disappearance from her life. Toggle navigation. A heavy rain is falling, blurring the streetlights reflecting off the asphalt, and she looks out into the glare of the headlamps and sees something move. Once, he arrived late to spring training because he lost track of time while hunting wolves in a cold northern forest, and the media focused so much on the process story of the tardiness that nobody seemed to notice the window Williams had briefly opened into his truest self: He sought peace in the wilderness with wolves.TED WILLIAMS HATED his childhood home, leaving before graduation the same as Claudia, never going back. Days passed without her manic exercise routine, which she used to exhaust herself into a kind of peace. Ted wrote about the water temperature (70-72 degrees), his friends who came up to fish, and details of the trout and arctic char he caught while casting for salmon. So, do I have a choice on January 26? "I think I'm just looking for him to still be proud of me," she says. It's a mess, all of it. He felt a vulnerability he never had in his life.- Claudia WilliamsLess than a year later, Ted sat before a stack of posters, doing one of the bulk signings familiar to all famous athletes. Rather than tell her father, she slit her arm from the wrist to the elbow. He asked her what she wanted as a gift, and she said she wanted time. Well, goddamit, why are you mad, why are you upset. That night, after Eric cooks steaks and Emma bakes sugar cookies, everyone piles onto the sofa for movie night. Claudia Williams is a journalist for The Advocate covering general news and events. ", "Who knows what the future will bring?" Everyone she has ever loved except for Eric is gone or almost gone, and she's sure she'll outlive Eric. "Her spirit lightens when she does his voice, everything lit from the inside. A what? Her father offered her money, but she refused it. Now in its 37th season on PBS, American Masters illuminates the lives and creative journeys of our nations most enduring artistic giantsthose who have left an indelible impression on our cultural landscapethrough compelling, unvarnished stories. Just months before his death, Williams makes an unannounced appearance at the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. Ted laughed and made a joke about it feeling good, and the inside of his hand was soft, the calluses he cultivated during baseball long gone smooth. She turns from West Fenway Drive onto Ted Williams Court in her blackAcura, the Euro club music rattling the rearview mirror. Michael Kantor and Albert M. Tapper are executive producers. Like I didn't deserve to be happy. he yelled. "What's incredible as an observer was to watch him in love with his kids," says Abel, now 52. His mother, May, was obsessed with her work at the Salvation Army, abandoning her own kids, and the descriptions of his lonely life exist in many accounts, most notably biographies by Ben Bradlee Jr. and Leigh Montville. "I mean, he had [me] at 53 years old," Claudia says, her voice wavering. Is the government doing enough to help young children flourish and parents succeed? Ted did not want to be frozen at first. He opens it on the kitchen counter, the pages full of his notes, some passages marked with a check if he feels they're accurate, other quotes highlighted and some with sharp, angry pen strokes when he's aggrieved, the margins littered with "not true" and "bulls---" and "lie." His will, which he wrote near the end of the fishing act of his life, made his wishes very clear. How a small investment firm is taking on one of the worlds richest men, Three journalists pitch their top story of the week to Tortoises editor-in-chief James Harding. May 4, 2014, 12:07 a.m. Claudia Willams. "Claudia and John-Henry would have given anything to know this. OL' TED WILLIAMS, HUH? Why is her show coming to an end? For more information on Major League Baseball, visit www.MLB.com. Articles by Claudia Williams on Muck Rack. she says, sounding vulnerable and shaky, like she's grasping for something beyond not only her reach but even her ability to name it. Finally he got his first fish. "If it means that much to you kids," he said, "fine.". The fortune-teller sat on a low stool. John-Henry kept saying cryonics provided a chance for them all to be together again one day. He should be cremated, his ashes "sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida where the water is very deep. Father and son had epic fights, bad enough that the caretakers called protective services. Support for Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived is provided by Harvey and Andrea Rosenthal and the Michael and Helen Schaffer Foundation. She trained for a triathlon and then devoted her life to making the 2000 Olympic team, falling just short. That's a good hot dog, isn't it? San Diego neighbors would watch Ted and his younger brother Danny, 8 and 6, sitting alone on the front porch late into the night. Claudia saw him first, and she and John-Henry dragged their father over.The fortune-teller sat on a low stool. He signed the rest, and the whole box went into storage. Williams hits one of his career 521 home runs, shown here in the late '50s. Claudia asks. . Zolgensma is a life-saving drug but it costs more than a million and a half pounds per patient. If people do know, she tests them constantly, to make sure they don't like her for her dad's name. ""I'm the one who reached down to keep pulling you up," Abel says, driving. His presence seemed real. If you have inside knowledge of a topic in the news, contact the ABC. This is the story of how, five years later, 300 remain lost in a system designed to swallow them, Claudia Williams presents a special edition of the Slow Newscast on a newsletter that both reflected and reshaped celebrity culture. The series is a production of The WNET Group. John-Henry wanted to control his father -- his latest Bangor -- and his father rebelled. She cooked hot dogs in a gypsy circus. She threw plates and knives. "Dad, you have to take this medicine," John-Henry would be saying. "I don't think [Ted] at the end of his life felt like he accomplished anything," Abel says. About 20 years ago, she graduated from college. "Their mom, Dolores, and Ted didn't last long. It's empty now, under renovation, sitting low and wide on a hill, beneath the grove of live oak trees. "He would see me coming up the road. Doctors gave her electroshock therapy. She got it as a gift. In 1989, 24-year-old Alberta Gail Williams (above) and her sister Claudia were sharing an apartment in Vancouver, Canada. She stepped out of the shadows and did readings. You could see it just gnaw. Claudia smiles. To the public, he was a success, but to himself, he was a failure, consumed with shame and regret. The industry is normally worth $132 million a year. He hid in the hyperfocus required by baseball and fishing; most nights after ballgames, he returned to the hotel where he lived -- he never purchased a home in Boston -- and tied fishing flies alone. She's young because her dad was much older than her mom -- Ted, the eternal player, tossed Dolores Wettach a note across the first-class cabin of an international flight, introducing himself simply as a fisherman -- starting Claudia's lifelong struggle to hold tight to something slipping between her fingers. or. During storms, driving up the hill toward their house in Vermont, he'd jump out of the car in the pouring rain, trying to get the frogs to move before they died beneath the wheels of the car. by Tim Keown, May 2 fight will seal Mayweather's legacy. He wasn't angry, and they weren't scared. "Ted had that constant insecurity. "I mean, he had [me] at 53 years old," Claudia says, her voice wavering. The lines speak to the two competing desires governing her life: She wants to be close to a father she didn't really know for much of his life, but she wants to escape his shadow too.She left home at 16, moving to Europe to finish high school, working as a nanny, training for triathlons, living in France, then Switzerland, then Germany, any place where nobody'd ever heard of Ted Williams. What caused them to vanish? It was two years before her best friend knew. The lessons that he had to teach us, we didn't have the time to learn. And once he realized 'I can be good at this, and these kids want to learn from me,' we had run out of time.". I can tell. She never asked for anything. ", Love had control over him. He felt vulnerable. "I hate time," she says.She lives in a sprawling Florida community popular among retirees whose first resident and primary pitchman was her father. A Louisville Slugger leaned in the same cabinet as Toothless the Dragon, the first bit of baseball memorabilia in the living room. She never held a job. SHE IS HIDING from loss, and from regret, hiding from her family's past, which is always operating the strings of her daily life. He beamed, and the next day, everything about him seemed different, and not just because he wore Red Sox gear head to toe. But what about their impact on the environment? Engage via Email. He'd been through the safes and the storage unit they keep filled to its 10-foot ceiling, hunting for the flannel shirt. Continue reading Porte crashes out of Tour de France , The morning traffic hums and birds chirp as a minute of silence is taken in respect of the Stolen Generation. They visited Alcatraz, and Ted used a Walkman for the first time, befuddled by the technology, and they all laughed. How could he be expected, then, to create a family when he despised his own so much? CBK GROUP/AP IMAGESNINE MONTHS AFTER that trip, he had a stroke. Claudia began to cry, and Ted's voice cracked when he tried to comfort her, as she'd taught him to do. She keeps many things locked away. In letters home, she described being adrift, telling her dad she felt "like a lost athlete looking for a sport." Setting the standard for documentary film profiles, the series has earned widespread critical acclaim: 28 Emmy Awardsincluding 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Specialtwo News & Documentary Emmys, 14 Peabodys, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards, an Oscar, and many other honors. -- and she got melancholy later and said, "We need to laugh more. ""Just tell me you love me," she said. Ad. Something happened to Ted Williams' face when he laughed; most pictures show him stern, in concentration, but when he giggled, his jowls would hang and his eyes would squint and he looked, for just a moment, nothing like one of the most famous men in America. Continue reading Queensland salutes JT .