Teammates, The: A Portrait of a Friendship
by David Halberstam

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Book Reviews of Teammates, The: A Portrait of a Friendship

Book Review: A sensitive story of a great baseball friendship.
Summary: 5 Stars

Warm and nostalgic, the book opens in October, 2001, as Dom DiMaggio, accompanied by Boston writer Dick Flavin and Johnny Pesky, makes a melancholy car trip from Boston to Florida to pay a last visit to Ted Williams, who is dying. As the men drive from Boston to Florida, they reminisce about their playing days more than fifty years in the past, recalling anecdotes about their friendship and talking about their lives, post-baseball. .

Halberstam uses these memories as the framework of this book, describing the men from their teenage years. All were from the West Coast, all were about the same age, and all arrived in Boston to begin their careers within the same two-year period. All shared similar values, and all but Ted came from supportive families. Ted Williams, "the undisputed champion of contentiousness," was the most dominant of the group. Bobby Doerr, was Williams's closest friend and roommate, "a kind of ambassador from Ted to the rest of the world" and "among the nicest and most balanced men." Bespectacled Dom DiMaggio, the brother of Vince and Joe, was the consummate worker, a smart player who had been "forced to study everything carefully when he was young in order to maximize his chances and athletic abilities." Johnny Pesky, combative and small, was also "kind, caring, almost innocent."

Stories and anecdotes, often told by the players themselves, make the men individually come alive and show the depth and value of their friendship. The four characters remain engaging even when, in the case of Williams, they may be frustratingly disagreeable. Though their journey to Williams's deathbed is a sad one, we see them, in Halberstam's sensitive rendering, as men who have always recognized and preserved the most important of human values. In that respect they continue to serve as heroes and exemplars to fans of baseball. Mary Whipple

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