by Craig Mitchell
Ted Williams was one of the best baseball players to ever play the game. A player of epic proportions and, at times, equally as divisive, Williams would rely on the rivers, streams, fields and forests to escape and find a reprieve from the constant media scrutiny. His passion and knowledge for the outdoors led him to sign one of the largest endorsement deals of the time, lending his name to a series of shotguns and sporting goods for Sears department store. It was Ted’s scientific approach to hitting that helped him achieve success at home plate and it was that same approach that led him to be an incredible shooter. Ted was a passionate hunter, a self-described “gun nut,” honing his hand-eye coordination while simultaneously reducing the distractions within the ballpark by shooting the pigeons of Fenway Stadium – metaphorically killing two birds with one shot.
The Hitter
Williams was known as “Teddy Ballgame” for his tremendous ability to hit home runs and to be the only player in the history of baseball to have a .400 average to finish a season. He played his entire 19-year career with the Boston Red Sox, primarily as a left fielder from 1939 to 1960, with his career interrupted twice for military service. During his tenure, he was a multiple time MVP, 18 time All Star, Hall of Famer and one hell of a shot with a shotgun.
In 1959, Fleer baseball cards released a special Ted Williams collector’s edition with one of the cards featuring him bird hunting. The 1959 Fleer Ted Williams #10 Duck Hunting card reads “… not only for the enjoyment of hunting but mainly to keep his legs and eyes in first class condition.” Ted loved hunting, using wing shooting as a unique training tool to help improve and maintain his hand-eye coordination.
Everyone from Derek Jeter to Warren Buffet has tried to dissect Ted Williams’ scientific approach to hitting. In a nutshell, William’s strategy boiled down to one important fact: wait for the right pitch, or in the case of wingshooting, the right shot. Williams looked to use that same scientific approach that made him such a fantastic hitter into other areas of life, like hunting and shooting. When he was patient and waited for the right pitch, he realized his success rate skyrocketed; if he rushed and was impatient, it plummeted. As Williams famously said, “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of 10 and be considered a good performer.” With that mentality it’s no wonder that Williams was an eager upland hunter.
The Bird Hunter
Williams considered himself an outdoorsman first and a baseball player second. After spending some time bird hunting with him, well-known outdoor writer Jack O’Connor wrote in the Minneapolis Daily Times on Nov. 28, 1941, “He’d rather go hunting than drive out the clinching homer in the ninth in the last game of the World Series. Which gives you a rough idea about the guy. Nuts about hunting – ducks, deer, moose, field mice.” Later Williams told O’Connor, “Me … I’d rather be duck hunting than eatin’ and eating is one of my favorite recreations.” As outlined in a Sports Illustrated article from 2002, his fishing guide Lee Harmon once asked Williams what his biggest thrill was, what made him the most excited, expecting an answer related to baseball. Instead, it was “calling in his first turkey. That’s the thrill he remembered best.” This was a man who even during the intensity of the baseball playoffs still had bird hunting on the brain.
Even while on active duty in an overseas war zone, Williams was never far from a shotgun or birds. Whenever he and his buddies weren’t dodging enemy jets they’d take off in one of the company’s jeeps and hunt the local rice paddies for birds, either pheasants or ducks. Williams found a few shotguns that his predecessor was leaving behind and bought them for $20. They had the cooks clean and prepare the birds he shot and then invited the air crew for dinner – in attendance was the future astronaut, John Glenn.
Upland Hunting at Fenway Park
It’s not a mere urban legend that Williams, who didn’t like the messy, cooing birds of Fenway Park soiling his outfield, took it upon himself to reduce their numbers by shooting them on the wing.
Local papers reported that he “sat in a chair near the Boston bullpen yesterday and sharpened his hitting eye by shooting at every pigeon that cruised within range.”
Williams often brought friends or teammates out hunting with him. Jim Atkinson, a teammate of Williams, detailed the experience to the Syracuse Post-Standard, “I showed up and he had a gun for me. The guns were sitting there in the outfield in a cart. He had some young buck bring them out there for us. And we started shooting for about a half hour … Williams was a tremendous shot.”
Many years later, Williams would be a guest on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show where he happily regaled Conan with tales of target shooting birds at Fenway.
What more could Ted Williams want? He was about to combine his three passions in one activity: firearms, hunting and baseball.
The Ted Williams Shotgun Endorsement
Following his retirement from baseball, Williams signed a six-figure deal with Sears, Roebuck and Co. to create a line of hunting shotguns and outdoor gear. Shortly after, he was hired to be a product development manager who would provide insight and advice for product development on outdoor products. Williams’s vast experiences in the outdoors hunting and fishing were compiled and published into a series of how-to pamphlets, including tips on bird hunting. For pheasants, he recommended a rather unorthodox approach: “For pheasant hunting, try tying little sleigh bells to a heavy chord and then tying the chord from one hunter’s belt to the other. As the bells rub against the top of the cover, the ringnecks will simply erupt. They can’t stand the noise that close.”
Not only did Williams lend his name to outdoor gear like rods, reels, hunting jackets and all manner of other equipment, he was best known for a line of hunting shotguns. By the end of his endorsement, he’d helped develop and produce a series of hunting shotguns, including an autoloader, a pump and a bolt-action offering. Ted Williams shotguns were made by Winchester in Japan for Sears and Roebuck. The pump action version offered a state-of-the-art “six position adjustable choke” that provided the shooter with multiple offerings for a variety of hunting scenarios. Coupled with the ability to replace or change barrels, it provided customers a utilitarian and adaptable offering for the field or forest.
Offered in 12- or 20-gauge and in two finishes, the plain version was marketed as the Sears Model 200 while the upgraded version bore the name and endorsement of Ted Williams. He said of the Williams Model 200, “It’s one of the smoothest pumping shotguns I’ve ever used and one of the best balanced too.” Today, a Ted Williams Sears pump gun is valued at around $200 to $350 with some of the double barrel varieties fetching closer to double that price.
Years later, after his death, Williams’ hunting trophies as well as pieces from his firearm collection were auctioned off by his family. Some of the shotguns included in his estate were a “rare and exceptional” custom made Winchester Model 12 side-by-side, a pre-war W.W. Greener 12-gauge side-by-side factor case shotgun, a first-year production Winchester Model 21 side-by-side shotgun, a Browning Auto – 5 Ducks Unlimited Sweet Sixteen shotgun and a custom-made Antoni Zoli over/under set. Even in death, Ted William’s most prized items were his firearms and his hunting memories.
Craig Mitchell is an Outdoor Education Teacher from Toronto, Canada, who spends his free time hunting and fishing in Northern Ontario with his family and Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Clover. Before becoming a teacher, Craig was a backcountry guide and grew up camping and fishing. When he’s not on an adventure with his young family or planning his next upland hunt, you’ll find him introducing his inner-city students to the great outdoors.
