Happy Birthday Ted Williams

During his playing days, Ted Williams told everyone his birthday was October 30, because he didn't want to be distracted by a birthday during the baseball season. Throughout his career, his birthday was even listed wrong on his baseball cards. But it's actually today, August 30. So happy birthday to Ted Williams, The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived!

Here's the back of my dad's 1954 Topps Ted Williams card, which he gave to me when I was a kid, and I still keep VERY safe.

 

THE TRUE STORY OF HANK AARON'S FIRST START FOR THE BRAVES

During a recent panel discussion about picture book biographies at the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) National Conference, I talked about uncovering a little bit of baseball history when I was doing research for my book, Henry Aaron's Dream. I've gotten lots of great feedback about that part of the presentation, so I thought I'd post the whole thing here, so librarians and teachers can share it with their students. And I think hardcore baseball fans might find it interesting too. Here goes...
 

According to just about every book written about Henry Aaron, here's how he first broke into the Braves' starting lineup:

He was a 20-year-old minor leaguer, traveling with the big-league Braves during spring training in 1954, playing the last few innings of each game. Then on March 13, the Braves' starting left-fielder, Bobby Thomson, broke his ankle during a spring training game. The very next day, on March 14, the Braves played the Boston Red Sox in Sarasota, and Henry Aaron was the new starting left-fielder for the Braves. He hit a home run that day, and the sound of his bat hitting the ball was so spectacular that the great Red Sox superstar Ted Williams came running out from the clubhouse to see who had hit that ball.

As the story goes, if Bobby Thomson hadn't broken his ankle, Henry Aaron might not have gotten his chance to prove himself in 1954.

This was a major moment in Henry Aaron's journey to the big leagues, and it's a wonderful story, especially the part about the great Ted Williams simply hearing the home run, and knowing that this 20-year-old kid was something special. So of course I wanted to write about it in Henry Aaron's Dream.

Researching this moment was pretty straightforward, because I found several sources which all told basically the same story, including Henry Aaron's excellent autobiography, I Had a Hammer. I even found an article written by Ted Williams himself where he tells the story. Check any timeline of Henry Aaron's life, and you'll read about the home run he hit against the Red Sox in Sarasota on March 14, 1954. No doubt about it, that's what happened.

The problem came when I tried to illustrate it. I decided to show Henry in the dugout, seeing his name in a major-league starting lineup for the very first time. For this picture to work, his name needed to be legible, which meant that all the other names on the lineup chart also needed to be legible, which meant that I somehow had to find the lineups from the March 14, 1954 spring training game between the Milwaukee Braves and the Boston Red Sox. 
 

I found digitized archives of a couple Wisconsin newspapers that covered the Milwaukee Braves 1954 spring training games. Here's the March 14, 1954 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal, featuring the bold headline, "Ankle Injury May Shelve Thomson Until June 15". 

So far, so good. Now I just needed to find the box score from the Red Sox- Braves game in the next day's paper and I'd be done.

And this is where the whole story started to unravel. Here are the recaps from the spring training games played on March 14, 1954, the day of Henry Aaron's legendary home run against the Red Sox in Sarasota. Notice anything strange?

According to this newspaper, the Braves did not play the Red Sox in Sarasota on March 14, 1954! They played the Cincinnati Redlegs in Tampa, while the Red Sox were in Miami playing the Dodgers.

Could every book I had read about Hank Aaron have gotten this wrong? Apparently, according to the newspapers from 1954... yes.

I searched through all the Braves-Red Sox games in the schedule, and couldn't find any home runs hit by Hank Aaron. Then finally I found it. The Braves and Red Sox played a make-up game in Sarasota on March 10:

Henry Aaron's name was in the starting lineup for the very first time on March 10, 1954, in a spring training game against the Boston Red Sox in Sarasota, three days before Bobby Thomson broke his ankle. Here's a close-up of the box score. Aaron is batting leadoff and playing right field (he wouldn't take over the left field job until March 29) and Bobby Thomson is batting cleanup, starting in left field:

Henry Aaron hit a home run that day, and his name remained in the starting lineup for most of the next twenty-three seasons. This was certainly a big day in young Henry Aaron's life. But it didn't happen quite the same way as everyone says it happened.

By the time Bobby Thomson broke his ankle on March 13, Henry Aaron had already cracked the starting lineup, partly because he was hitting .400 after the first few games of the spring, and party because of injuries to two other outfielders, Bill Bruton and Walter Peterson, on March 7 and 8, respectively.

And there's one other little problem I discovered. Check the box score again. Looking through the Red Sox lineup, you'll notice that Ted Williams's name is nowhere to be found.

I did a little more research in the Boston newspapers and found that Ted Williams broke his collarbone on March 1, 1954. He underwent surgery in Boston on March 9, one day before this game. This is what Ted Williams looked like on March 10, 1954:

He was not released from the hospital until the following week. Ted Williams certainly may have remembered hearing Hank Aaron hit a home run, but he wasn't there for this particular home run on March 10, 1954.

If there were no illustrations in Henry Aaron's Dream, I probably never would have stumbled upon this little piece of history. If I hadn't decided to draw a picture of the lineup chart, I might never have looked at the old newspapers. But I'm glad I did. There was something incredibly exciting about this process of digging through old newspapers, finding out what really happened. And that excitement is part of what I love about making nonfiction books. There's a detective-work aspect to it, and oftentimes my research takes me to places I did not expect to go.

But this example also shows how difficult illustrating a non-fiction book can be. It's one thing to find a few sources that tell how something really happened. But when you actually try to draw a picture of what it looked like while it was happening, you might run into a whole other set of problems.

In the end, I included this moment in Henry Aaron's Dream, because whether it was March 10 or March 14, it was a major moment in Henry Aaron's life- even if Ted Williams wasn't there. I relied mostly on the actual box scores and articles from the 1954 newspapers.

I'm sure some serious baseball fans will notice the discrepancy between my book and other books about Hank Aaron, but maybe they'll end up reading this article and hopefully they'll find the whole thing just as fascinating as I did.

images copyright 2010 by Matt Tavares. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press

Note: A few months after Henry Aaron's Dream came out, Howard Bryant's excellent biography, The Last Hero: The Life of Henry Aaron was released- the first book I've found that accurately told this part of Hank Aaron's story.

We Art Boston

Just wanted to spread the word about a great program I am honored to be involved with: We Art Boston, a fundraising event and auction featuring original artwork and books by over 40 beloved contemporary children's book illustrators, including Mo Willems, Barbara McClintock, Oliver Jeffers, David Macaulay, Melissa Sweet, Joe McKendry... the list goes on! All proceeds will benefit the Emergency and Trauma Fund at Boston's Children's Hospital.

I donated this illustration, from my book, There Goes Ted Williams:

As part of the We Art Boston fundraiser, I will be involved with two fun events: first I'll be joining my friends, award-winning illustrators Barbara McClintock and Joe McKendry, for a Stuffed Animal Portrait Party at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA on October 5. Bring your favorite stuffed animal, and we'll draw a portrait of it!

Then I'll be at the big event at the Rose Kennedy Greenway on October 20. There will be lots of fun family activities, bookmaking, book signings, live music, and all the artwork will be on display. I hope to see lots of people there!

Even if you aren't anywhere near Boston, you can still take part in the online auction, which kicks off on October 10.

Please spread the word!

Happy 100th Birthday Fenway Park!

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Fenway Park, I'm giving away a copy of There Goes Ted Williams, with an original pen drawing of Fenway inside (which I just drew a few minutes ago). Here it is:

To enter, just leave a comment on this post. Feel fee to share a Fenway memory if you want.

I'm also posting the giveaway on Twitter, so if you're on Twitter, please help me out and retweet it! Thanks.

Ted Williams and Randy Riley

Hey look, it's Chris Van Dusen and me on 207, talking about our new baseball books, There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived (by me) and Randy Riley's Really Big Hit (by Chris)!



Which reminds me... this is just a few days away!


OPENING DAY! A Book Launch Celebration with Chris Van Dusen and Matt Tavares
10:30 AM on Saturday, February 25 at  Kennebooks in Kennebunk, Maine
We'll read our new books, answer questions, and sign books. There will be ballpark food and plenty of fun baseball-themed stuff for everyone to do. Come dressed for the ballgame, in your favorite Red Sox gear (or Yankee gear, if you must). It should be a lot of fun.

Chris and I will be doing a mini-tour of some of our favorite independent bookstores around Maine and New Hampshire. So if you can't make it to this one, maybe we'll see you at one of the other events!

THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS available today!

My new book, There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived, is now available in stores! Hooray!!

Here's a little preview courtesy of Google books, with links to a few places where you can buy it, like your local independent bookstore, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

And here is the book trailer:

Today also happens to be the release date of the new Fenway Centennial Edition of Zachary's Ball (released simultaneously in hardcover and paperback) and the new paperback edition of Henry Aaron's Dream! Huzzah!

new Fenway Centennial Edition of Zachary's Ball, with snazzy new cover design and new author's note about Fenway Park

Henry Aaron's Dream, now available in paperback

Early Reviews for THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS

A couple nice reviews for There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived...

From School Library Journal:

"Following his outstanding Henry Aaron’s Dream (Candlewick, 2010), Tavares has written an equally stunning book about another Baseball Hall of Famer....Williams’s charisma dominates the illustrations, from the very first one of a scrawny boy swinging under the palm trees of a San Diego playground, to his final trip around the bases at Fenway. Due attention is also given to Williams’s distinguished military career, which he approached with the same determination to dominate as he did hitting.... This is a glorious tribute to a baseball legend and a complicated human being."

and this from Kirkus:

"Williams was a complex and difficult personality, but Tavares chooses to focus on these larger-than-life heroics, telling of Williams’ desire to be the best at everything he attempted and the joy he felt when he accomplished his goals. The language is rich in imagery, with short, action-packed sentences.... Commanding watercolor, gouache and pencil illustrations depict Williams in action as a boy, a major-leaguer and a Navy pilot. Tavares captures him well in his Red Sox uniform, with his unique swing and home-run trot."

The book comes out in three weeks. So far, so good!

By the way, you can still enter to win a free copy!

Come Meet Pedro Martinez and Support The Jimmy Fund!

Spring Training is still a couple months away, but you can get your Red Sox fix at an amazing event taking place at Jillian's in Boston on Saturday, January 14, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. It's an autograph-signing event called "New Stars for Young Stars", a unique chance to meet up-and-coming Red Sox players, as well as their new manager, Bobby Valentine, starting catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and the Greatest Pitcher in Red Sox History... Pedro Martinez!

Oh, I'll be there too, signing There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived and Zachary's Ball. But who cares! Pedro Martinez will be there! PEDRO MARTINEZ!!

Ted Williams was involved with The Jimmy Fund from the very beginning, and he was the single most influential person in helping to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. So I'm thrilled for my very first book signing for There Goes Ted Williams to be a fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund. The book doesn't actually come out until February 14, but Candlewick Press is donating advance copies so all the kids from The Jimmy Fund Clinic will get a free signed copy of my book.

Tickets start at $150 and VIP tickets are $250. All proceeds from the 2012 event will benefit The Jimmy Fund, and Pedro Martinez and Brothers Foundation.

Visit the Jimmy Fund website to order tickets.

Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lennie Merullo, and me

Here's a little behind-the-scenes story from my book, Oliver's Game:

The man who posed for me as Grandpa Hall actually played for the Chicago Cubs in the 1940's. His name is Lennie Merullo, and he was the starting shortstop for the Cubs the last time they made it to the World Series, in 1945!

I originally just wanted to interview Mr. Merullo, but once he started talking, I realized he was exactly how I pictured Grandpa Hall- just the right age, and overflowing with amazing stories about his days as a big league ballplayer. So I asked if he'd pose for me, and he did.  Mostly he just kept telling stories, and I took pictures.

One of my favorite stories he told was about how he managed to accumulate an incredible collection of three game-used baseball bats that had belonged to Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Ted Williams!

Here he is, in the fake baseball card store I built in my basement:

After the book was done, I was doing a school visit in Reading, Mass. I didn't know it, but Lennie's grand-daughters were students at the school, and he decided to pay me a surprise visit. And he brought something with him- a bag with three baseball bats in it!

They weren't in any sort of protective cases, just 3 old wooden bats in a canvas bag, like he was heading to the field to hit some fungoes. He let me hold the bats, and even swing them. It was pretty surreal to know I was swinging bats that Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, and Babe Ruth actually used in games. Here are a few pictures:

Lennie Merullo, his family, and me, with Ted Williams's bat and Babe Ruth's bat

This was years ago, and looking at these pictures, I'm not completely sure which bat is which. I think this was the Ted Williams bat, since the handle is a bit thinner:

me with Ted Williams's bat

And I think this is the Babe Ruth bat. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, what a thrill! I bet there aren't too many bats like this out there, that you can just pick up and swing.

me with Babe Ruth's bat

THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS book trailer

I put together this short book trailer for my upcoming book, There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived. Enjoy!





The book won't be available until Febraury 14, 2012, but you can pre-order it now from a local bookstore!

Ted Williams, Arthur Griffin, and me...

I've got some very exciting news about my upcoming book, There Goes Ted Williams. But first, a little background...

One day during the 1939 baseball season, acclaimed photographer Arthur Griffin spent a couple hours at Fenway Park, taking pictures of lanky Red Sox rookie, Ted Williams. Griffin took several rolls of pictures using his usual 35mm black and white camera, but he also brought along a new 4"x 5" view camera, because Eastman Kodak had asked him if he would test out their newly-created color film.

These color photos that Griffin took of Ted Williams back in 1939 are some of the most beautiful baseball photographs I've ever seen, and the very first color photographs ever taken of Ted Williams. It's amazing to see him in full color at 20 years old. You can tell why they called him "The Kid".

You my have seen some of these pictures without even realizing it. Remember this image of Ted Williams that graced the cover of Sports Illustrated after he passed away in 2002? This is one of the pictures Arthur Griffin took that day in 1939:

Fast forward to October of 2011. A family friend visited my parents, and brought a gift to pass along to me- two photographs of Ted Williams that had belonged to her husband, a childhood friend of my father's, who passed away recently. They didn't mean much to her, and she thought I might appreciate them, since she knew I had been working on a book about Ted Williams. Here they are:

I've got them up on my studio wall, and I just keep staring at them. Two 11 x 14 color prints, taken by Arthur Griffin that day in 1939, autographed by Arthur Griffin AND by Ted Williams! 

I'm sure she could have gotten a lot of money for these treasures, and I'm blown away that she decided to give them to me. Here's a closer look at each:

I think this one is my favorite, because it captures Ted Williams so well. Even when he's posing with his glove, he's still working on his batting stance.

Or maybe this one is my favorite...

Getting this amazing gift gave me an idea. I was hoping to find somewhere in the Boston area to host a launch party for There Goes Ted Williams. Seeing these pictures made me think that maybe the Arthur Griffin Museum in my hometown, Winchester, Massachusetts would be the perfect place. I could sign copies of my book while people enjoy an exhibit of Arthur Griffin's amazing Ted Williams photographs.

To make a long story slightly less long... I mentioned the idea to Judy Manzo, bookseller extraordinaire and owner of my hometown independent bookstore, Book Ends. She loved the idea, and offered to show an advance copy of the book to the people at the Arthur Griffin Museum, which she did. Their response was so much better than I even hoped for. They don't just want to host a launch party. They want to host an exhibit of Arthur Griffin's 1939 photographs AND my original artwork from my book, There Goes Ted Williams!

So that's the exciting news! I'll have more formal promo materials as the date approaches, but for now, here are the details:

There Goes Ted Williams: Matt Tavares and Arthur Griffin
The Griffin Museum of Photography, in Winchester, Mass
Exhibit will run April 5 through May 27, 2012
Opening reception: Thursday, April 12, 7:00-8:30pm
Artist talk and book signing:  Sunday, April 22, 3:00pm
(signed books will also be available at the opening reception)

Winchester's excellent independent bookstore, Book Ends, will be handling book sales at both events.

I'm really looking forward to this, and I'm so honored to know that my Ted Williams illustrations will be up on the wall with Arther Griffin's photographs. If you're anywhere near Winchester, Mass, I hope to see you at the opening!

illustration from There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived, by Matt Tavares

Ted Williams and the Jimmy Fund

Today, August 30, is the 93rd birthday of Ted Williams (although he celebrated it on October 30 during his playing days because he didn't want to be distracted during the baseball season). Today also happens to be the first day of the 10th annual NESN/WEEI Jimmy Fund Radio Telethon, which has raised a whopping $26 million dollars to help fight cancer, over the last nine years.

During his career, Ted Williams made countless unreported visits to the Jimmy Fund clinic, not just stopping by to say hi but actually staying and spending time with kids, helping them with their homework, talking about hitting, promising home runs and brightening their worlds. He was the single most influential person in helping to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which still thrives today.

What better way to celebrate the birthday of Ted Williams than to give to the Jimmy Fund today.

Ted Williams Jimmy Fund statue outside Fenway Park

Illustration from THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS copyright © 2012 Matt Tavares.
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Inc., Somerville, MA.

There Goes Ted Williams is a Junior Library Guild Selection!

Great news- my upcoming There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived is a 2012 Junior Library Guild Selection! The release date is still 6 months away, and it's very exciting to get some early positive feedback. You can check it out on the JLG website. Of all the books I've made, I think this one is my favorite. I can't wait for it to come out.

the cover illustration for There Goes Ted Williams, in progress

Book Giveaway!

My first book, Zachary's Ball, came out 11 years ago today. To celebrate, I'm giving away this signed hardcover copy, with an original pen drawing of Ted Williams on the title page. Anyone who "likes" my facebook page between now and Friday, March 4 will be entered to win. If you already "like" my facebook page (thanks!), you can enter by "liking" this photo on facebook. Good luck!