Ted Williams Quotes

[Fred Shapiro]

Here's two for the ProQuest and Newspaperarchive experts, particularly the
baseball-oriented ones:

a) Can anyone help me trace how far back Ted Williams' line to the effect
that "Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three
times out of ten and be considered a good performer" goes?

b) Bernard Malamud's 1952 book The Natural has Roy Hobbs stating something
about wanting people to look at him going down the street and say
"There goes Roy Hobbs, the best who ever played the game."  Ted Williams
probably said something similar about being hailed as the best hitter who
ever lived.  Which came first, i.e., is there any pre-1952 evidence for
a similar Williams quote?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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