John Henry Williams - The Kid's Kid on MLN Sports Zone - A Minor League Sports News Magazine

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By Dan Wachowski
MinorLeagueNews.com

03.07.03 - Legends are tough for their children to live with. It is even tougher when the legend is Ted Williams, a father who was the last player to hit over .400 in the Major Leagues. His achievements in baseball cast a long shadow. Ted Williams' son, John Henry, would have had enough on his plate just being the Kid's kid.

When the Kid passed away, the baseball world mourned. When news broke that Ted Williams was to be placed in cryogenic suspension, awaiting a cure for old age, the baseball world reacted with shock, disbelief, and anger.

At the center of this storm stood John Henry Williams, insisting that these were his father's final wishes, and that they were to be honored. Opposite him, his half-sister, who insisted that her father wished to be buried.

That now shopworn sensationalism splayed and skewered in the national media is not the story. John Henry Williams is a man, who, in his thirties, was given an inheritance by his aging, famous father not of money, or collectibles, but of passion for the game that he loved. A legacy of passion for baseball that brought a father and son together late in life.

Born Again Baseball.

In his teens and through his twenties, John Henry played a little in high school and college, but it wasn't his passion. "My mom and dad divorced when I was four years old," recalls Williams. "Baseball wasn't something that was prevalent. It was more cross-country skiing."

Then in his thirties, John Henry rediscovered Ted Williams, and baseball. The father and son had been largely estranged through most of John Henry's youth. As his eighty-year-old father's health began to deteriorate, John Henry became part of the family business. He helped his father manage his more limited schedule of appearances, and the business of autographed items and collectibles.

What originally started out as therapy for the ailing Ted Williams became the passion of his son.

The Splendid Splinter, no longer able to step into a batting cage, began coaching his son on the finer points of hitting. It was a way of getting outdoors and enjoying each other's company.

According to John Henry, the relationship he developed with his father in his later years was invaluable to both father and son.

"[Our time together] was probably a big part of his success in being happy in his later years. It's just too bad I was born so late in his life."

Why did baseball come to John Henry in his thirties? He offers up a bit of baseball mysticism: "The stars aligned, [that's] the simplest answer. It just worked out that way."

John Henry has no regrets about discovering his father late in Ted's life. He recognizes that bonding over baseball with a father who held the game up to the highest standard had its challenges.

"I really put my life on hold to spend time with him. It was not easy all the time because he was a very tough guy."

Anyone who has had a successful parent faces two choices. Either turn away from that profession, or turn into it and establish your own ground. John Henry is turning into that historic wind.

The why of John Henry Williams' passion to play baseball may be more interesting than any of the hype that has caught the attention of the media.

Opportunity or Opportunism?

Perhaps it was fitting that John Henry's first opportunity to play professional baseball came with the Miracle of Ft. Meyers, Florida, a Single-A farm club of the Boston Red Sox in the Florida State League.

He finished the season with a dismal 0-6 record. That alone might have been enough to get him cut, pedigree or no. The controversy over his father's remains, sources tell MLN, would have been enough to send the younger Williams to the showers in affiliated baseball.

The teams affiliated with Major League Baseball are the big show, but they're not the only show. John Henry took his quest to the independent leagues.

When the Schaumburg Flyers of the independent Northern League signed John Henry to a contract, some said that it was just a publicity stunt.

His name may have played a big part in his getting signed, but what happens now falls squarely on the 34-year-old's shoulders.

The Gift of a Dream

Williams doesn't see the legacy of his relationship with his father as the recent controversy, but in the gift of his new-found ambition to play the game of baseball.

"This is my gift. This is what I been waiting for, this opportunity to play. The greatest gift that anyone could have in their entire life is to have a cause, to follow a dream, and I have it right now."

While John Henry may not possess his father's natural talent, it may be the genetic marker for his drive that carries him. It is that inheritance from Ted Williams that he acknowledges most.

"The greatest gift that any parent could ever bestow upon their children is to have the drive to want to get up every morning, to want to do something, to want to succeed in something, to fight for success," said John Henry.

"My Dad was sixteen. He said all I want to do is walk down the street and have people say 'There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived.' [He] wished upon every single falling star. That is what he wanted. He fought and that was his dream."

John Henry recalls the latter years of Williams' career as a time when his father's will to maintain his greatness shone above all who urged him to move on into history.

"Eventually all of the negativity and all of the people that wanted him out of baseball and all of the people that said you should retire and being all negative about him, they all turned around. You saw what happened. They all turned around. Once they see it, people admire someone who, through thick and thin, through all of it, chases their dream, follows it up and are willing to fail."

In a game that almost begins at birth, where young men spend most of their life training and playing and showing up at all the "right" places for a split-second of a scout's time, discovering the passion to play baseball in one's thirties is a Don Quixote-like quest more worthy of Dennis Quaid in a Hollywood movie.

"I am taking a humongous risk. People compliment me and say you have guts to even try this at your age. If I can take a year I would take whatever. They say you are living my dream."

The Bastion of Last Hopes

Many people have written off John Henry's quest as an aggrandized version of fantasy baseball camp. "I got people who are big time in the media saying you are the envy of many others out there right now. People who are sitting behind the desk and [that] I'm lucky that I had the Dad that I did who [was] willing to give me the opportunity to play. But I am not going to be on this team unless I can play."

John Henry's hall pass into the affiliated minors ended last year as much for his dismal record as it did from the controversy stirred up by the feeling of many in the MLB system who felt that Ted Williams deserved a more dignified ending to his great life.

John Henry's notoriety is still a beacon that shines light on wherever he may be. It will bring attention to the Northern League, made up of dreamers, injuries, attitudes, and exiles, just like Williams.

How does John Henry's psyche fit into this bastion of last hopes?

"Baseball tests your faith unlike any other sport," said Williams. "I don't know when something will happen. If you sit in this game long enough and you have your heart in it, I truly believe it will reward you."

The Tenacious Toothpick

Today, by his own account, he is a nothing. The center of a storm of controversy surrounding his father, the man John Henry Williams is both humble and accurate. He admits that he is a little embarrassed by all the hype and publicity.

"I haven't hit seventy home runs", he said, "If that were to happen, I would be more than happy to talk. Right now, it's more of a phenomenon."

There will be some who accuse him of using his father to propel himself into a baseball career. Those who make the charge likely will know no more about the Splendid Splinter's tenacious toothpick than a casual reading of the man from sidebars to the "big" story.

What they may miss is a more subtle truth about John Henry Williams, that his quest for a place in the world of baseball is as much a quiet tribute to his father's memory as it is a way to experience, in a small way, what it is like to play in the sport of legends like his father.