Trading for Ted Williams

Bill Lane, the owner of the then-minor league San Diego Padres, picks up outfielders Dom Dallessandro and Spence Harris, along with infielder Al Niemiec and, most important, $35,000 from the Boston Red Sox 88 years ago today for the rights to one of Lane’s outfielders.

Ted Williams in the minors with San Diego

The Padres’ outfielder – a 19-year-old local kid named Ted Williams – spends the 1938 season with the Red Sox’s top minor league affiliate in Minneapolis before reaching the majors in 1939.

Williams then spends most of the next 21 years pummeling American League pitching with 521 career homers, a .344 lifetime batting average, .482 on-base percentage and .634 slugging percentage.

His confidence, of course, is a perfect 1.000.

His Hall of Fame numbers would be even loftier if not for missing all or parts of five seasons serving as a pilot during both World War II from 1943-45 and in Korea from 1952-53.

“It’s a funny thing,” Williams later says, “but, as years go by, I think you appreciate more and more what a great thing it was to be a United States Marine.

“People will tell me what a shame it was I had to go back into the service a second time, but I’m kind of glad I did. Besides, I am a U.S. Marine and I’ll be one till I die.”

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