“The Ted Williams of Tennis”
I’m reading this great book called The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese. Dr. Verghese’s first book My Own Country, his autobiograpical story of running an AIDS clinic in the 1980s in rural Tennessee was one of my all-time favorites.
Early on, along with a brilliant turn of phrase every 3 paragraphs, he had this…
Ivan Lendl was to me the Ted Williams of tennis, the way he used a brand new frame and new shoes with every ball change during a match, the way each racket was strung with geniune gut at exactly seventy-two and a half pounds, the way he would toss a ball to an umpire when his fingers detected a drop in pressure that no one else had noticed. David Halberstam in Summer of ’49 describes once how Ted Williams struck out at Fenway, he came to the dugout raving that the home plate was out of line. The next day, to humor him, they measured the plate. It was out of line. Lendl gave just that kind of attention to detail that oulwd have made him a great clinician, and yet, like Williams, he didn’t suffer fools well and was not a popular champion. (p. 47)
I’ve never thought about it that way but it’s exactly right. I’m loving this book.