Any biography of Ted Williams will run through the various nicknames that his great baseball batting brought him: Teddy Ballgame, the Splendid Splinter, and The Thumper. Perhaps the most descriptive of all was the first one he was given and the one that stuck until the end: simply The Kid. After all, he began his professional career before he finished high school.

Here, at Electro-Mech, we not only produce electronic baseball scoreboards but we also provide news on all things sports- baseball included. We cover everything from the latest trends and scandals to the history of game and biographies of your favorite players. For now, we’ll focus on Ted Williams.

Ted Williams was just 19 when he was worked out in the minor leagues while still in his San Diego high school. The next spring the Boston Red Sox, the only team he played for in his entire career, took him up to the majors and he immediately was elected an All Star. This was the first of 17 All Star awards that Williams would earn during the 21-year span of his career.

Williams is revered as the best student of baseball hitting that has ever stepped up to the plate. In the years following Ruth’s retirement, Williams emerged as the most heralded big batter of his time, earning his nicknames and also several records that stood for 50 years or still stand today. Among them, The Thumper’s unmatched feat of batting .400 over one season. Granted, they were actually two shortened seasons. The Splendid Splinter also held the on base percentage record over one season with a .551 percentage. That record was only recently broken by Barry Bonds. His other accomplishments include 521 career home runs, a .344 career batting average and he was twice elected as League MVP.

As much as Williams was “The Kid” when he began, he went through some growing pains in front of the public during his baseball career. Two times he interrupted his baseball career to serve in the Marines as the United States fought in the Korean War. However, it wasn’t without a fuss. Williams soured some of the public with his successful challenge to defer his military service until he could save more money to take care of his mother. In the end, however, Williams went to war and was always recognized for outstanding performance during both of his tours of duty.

Just as Ted Williams’s career was spectacular, so was his off-the-field life. Never one to sit quietly by, Williams had a long time public dialogue with his competitor Joe DiMaggio, which really exploded when DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak overshadowed Williams’s on -base record. Later he would acknowledge that DiMaggio was better all around but that he was the better batter. At his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Teddy Ballgame opened the door for several Negro League stars whom he argued should be now, at last, given their due. Finally, just after his death a posthumous and public family battle broke out over Williams supposed wish to be cryogenically frozen to potentially reunite with his wife and family in the future. But more than any of these small footnotes, Williams career will be remembered for his great and prolific hitting. Over those 21 years, Williams was an intimidating and massive presence at bat.