As baseball legend Ted Williams lay dying in Florida, his old Boston Red Sox teammates Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio piled into a car and drove 1,300 miles to see their friend. Another member of the close-knit group, Bobby Doerr, remained in Oregon to tend to his wife who had suffered a stroke. Besides providing a poignant travelogue of the elderly Pesky and DiMaggio's trip, David Halberstam's The Teammates goes back in time to profile the men as young ballplayers. Although it is enlightening to learn about Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio, the leader of the group and star of the book is Williams. Halberstam portrays the notoriously moody and difficult Williams as a complex man: driven by a rough childhood and a fiercely competitive nature to become perhaps the greatest pure hitter of all time while also being a magnetic personality and loving friend. While there is nothing exceptionally unusual about old men who have stayed friends (plenty of people stay friends, after all), baseball gives this particular relationship a unique makeup. Unlike most friendships, that of Williams, Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio was viewed all summer long by hooting, hollering Red Sox fans. As such, their bond is forged both of individual accomplishment, win-loss records, numerous road trips, and, since they played for the Red Sox, annual doses of disappointment. Halberstam, author of Summer of '49 and October 1964 is the ideal writer to tell two equally intriguing stories, both rich in America's pastime. Although he occasionally drops himself into the narrative, one expects that of Halberstam and gladly accepts it in exchange for the highly readable exposition infused with poetic majesty that has become his trademark. --John Moe


From Publishers Weekly
Famed journalist and baseball aficionado Halberstam (Summer of '49) presents a short but sweet account of the lives and friendship of four ballplayers from the legendary Boston Red Sox teams of the 1940s: Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr. Told in a series of flashbacks as DiMaggio and Pesky drive from Massachusetts to Florida to see an ailing Williams for what was probably their last time, Halberstam's story is less a biography and more a reverie for "men of a certain generation, born right at the end of World War I" who "had seized on baseball as their one chance to get ahead in America." The book tells the various ways each player "shared an era," from their childhoods to their first meetings through their long tenures with the Red Sox. As in his other sports books, Halberstam has a great eye for the telling detail behind an athlete's facade, whether it is Williams's sense of himself as "a scared, unwanted, unloved kid from a miserable home" or Pesky's stoic acceptance of being blamed for the Red Sox's loss in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series, when in fact-as Halberstam clearly shows-it was not Pesky's fault at all. Fans of Halberstam's work will be satisfied by his chapter-long description of that crucial World Series game. But that is merely the more obviously exciting part of a book in which the main pleasures are more quiet glimpses of the four friends, including Doerr's calming influence over the more explosive Williams, DiMaggio's heroic fight against Paget's disease and the friends' final, touching meeting with Williams in Florida. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The backdrop for this history of four lifelong friends--once Red Sox teammates--is the trip two of them, Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio, made down the East Coast two years ago to visit a third, Ted Williams, who was dying. (Bobby Doerr, the fourth, had to remain at home in Oregon with his ailing wife.) The author uses this trek to digress on the sagas of these great men who "seized on baseball as their one chance to get ahead in America." Halberstam reflects upon the immigrant experience, the changing nature of the game, the perennial spirit of competition, and friendship's essence as he describes, thrillingly, several of the team's unforgettable moments. Tate Donovan's articulate narration allows the listener to focus, foursquare, on the author's words in this deeply affectionate treatment of very special lives and times. M.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Lifelong friendships are as rare as they are treasured. This moving little book from celebrated reporter Halberstam tells the story of one such friendship among four teammates on the Boston Red Sox baseball team of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, and Dom DiMaggio were devoted to one another for nearly 50 years after their playing careers ended, and the friendship still exists today among the survivors. In late 2001, Ted Williams was dying. Pesky and DiMaggio wanted to see him one more time. In the aftermath of September 11, flying wasn't an option, prompting the two octogenarians to drive (with the help of a Boston TV personality) from New England to Florida to see their friend. (Doerr was unable to make the journey.) With uncommon sensitivity, Halberstam recounts the trip and celebrates the life of this memorable friendship. Williams was the dominant personality and the glue that held the group together. (The joke was that Dom's brother Joe's record 56-game hitting streak was insignificant compared to the 30,000 consecutive arguments Williams won within the group.) There are anecdotes of the four men's playing days and summaries of their satisfying lives in retirement, but what brings the story full circle and gives it added depth are the visits with the very ill Williams--visits in which the twinkle-eyed curmudgeon showed brief sparks of the man his friends had loved for almost 60 years. This account of good people living full lives and appreciating the experience will move readers in the same way that Tuesdays with Morrie did. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Ft Worth Morning Star-Telegram
"If you don't tear up...the fault lies in you rather than in the book."


Publishers Weekly
"Halberstam has a great eye for the telling detail behind an athlete's facade."


Time Magazine
"Halberstam has given [Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Ted Williams] a glorious, flaming, autumnal epilogue."


Rick Telander, Chicago Sun Times
"(a) crystalline gem of a work about old pals, in theory, but really about everything there is."


New York Times Book Review
"An elegant account of the lives and friendships of four legendary Boston Red Sox."


Richard J. Tofel, The Wall Street Journal
"Insightful . . . a touching essay on male friendship."


Dan Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe
"Halberstam's new masterpiece."


Michael Kay, The Yankee Entertainment Sports Network
"One of the best books you'll ever read."


Weekly Standard
"Knowledgeable, touching, and beautifully written."


Newport News Press
"A complex character study of four strong, driven men."


Book Description
Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky were all members of the famed 1940's Boston Red Sox. Their legendary careers led the Red Sox to a pennant championship and ensured the men a place in sports history. David Halberstam, the bestselling author of the baseball classic Summer of '49, has followed the members of the 1949 championship Boston Red Sox team for years, especially Williams, Doerr, DiMaggio, and Pesky. In this extremely moving book, Halberstam reveals how these four teammates became friends, and how that friendship thrived for more than 60 years. The book opens with Pesky and DiMaggio travelling to see the ailing Ted Williams in Florida. It's the last time they will see him. The journey is filled with nostalgia and memories, but seeing Ted is a shock. The most physically dominating of the four friends, Ted now weighs only 130 pounds and is hunched over in a wheelchair. Dom, without even thinking about it, starts to sing opera and old songs like "Me and My Shadow" to his friend. Filled with stories of their glory days with the Boston Red Sox, memories of legendary plays and players, and the reaction of the remaining three to Ted Williams' recent death, The Teammates offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of these celebrated men -- and great insight into the nature of loyalty and friendship.


Download Description
Halberstam frequently interviewed Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Peske. In this book, Halberstam offers a rare glimpse into the special lives and friendships of these men. But it focuses on the more than 50-year friendship among them and serves as a testament to loyalty and the bonds of friendship. Complete with stories of their glory days with the Boston Red Sox, their lifelong friendship, and the reaction of the remaining three to the death of Ted Williams, THE TEAMMATES is a must-buy for anyone who wants to know more about these legends but more importantly, for those who want a close look at the type of friendship that comes only through sharing trials and triumphs over many years.


About the Author
Author David Halberstam writes that one of the happiest days of his life was the day he met Ted Williams. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Halberstam is the author of 14 national bestsellers, including The Best and the Brightest and Firehouse. He lives with his family in New York City.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In early October 2001, Dominic DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky begin a 1,300-mile trip by car to visit their beloved teammate Ted Williams, knowing that he is dying. Bobby Doerr, the fourth member of this close group - "my guys," Williams used to call them - is unable to be with them because he is back in Oregon tending to his wife of sixty-three years, Monica, who has suffered her second stroke." "At the core of the book is the friendship of these four very different but extraordinary men, the key players in a remarkable Boston Red Sox team, who stayed close to each other for more than sixty years." The Teammates is the story of two trips: the final one that DiMaggio and Pesky are taking to see Williams, and another, a flight back in time, as they and Bobby Doerr recall the wonders of their years together and reminisce about a magical era.

SYNOPSIS

Halberstam frequently interviewed Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Peske. In this book, Halberstam offers a rare glimpse into the special lives and friendships of these men. But it focuses on the more than 50-year friendship among them and serves as a testament to loyalty and the bonds of friendship.

FROM THE CRITICS

Time

Halberstam has given [Williams, Pesky, DiMaggio, and Doerr] a glorious, flaming autumnal epilogue.

The New York Times

As David Halberstam sketches their lives, The Teammates even bears a resemblance at times to Graham Swift's novel Last Orders (1996), in which a carload of mourners travels from London to Kent, reminiscing about themselves and a departed friend. In this case Williams was still alive, but frail and in a wheelchair -- a 130-pound wraith of his former self -- and the journey took on a certain urgency and poignance. — Charles McGrath

The Washington Post

This slender, elegant book follows DiMaggio and Pesky -- Doerr was tending to his sick wife back home in Oregon -- on their drive from Massachusetts to Florida to visit the ailing Williams. The drive is just the narrative thread; most of the book centers on the lives of these four men, whom Halberstam got to know while researching The Summer of '49. — Jonathan Mahler

An elegant account of the lives and friendships of four legendary Boston Red Sox.

Publishers Weekly