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1966 Ted Williams Baseball Hall of Fame Bronze Induction Plaque, Personal Model. ...
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Description
The ultimate symbol of athletic immortality!
1966 Ted Williams Baseball Hall of Fame Bronze Induction Plaque, Personal Model. "All I want out of life," Williams once told a friend, "is that when I walk down the street folks will say, 'There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived.'" While such complicated superlatives rarely reach the level of full consensus, it's likely a sentence that was directed at the Boston Red Sox legend more often than at any other man in baseball history. And so, in that regard, Ted Williams lived to see his greatest dream fulfilled.But a sentiment or a sentence, no matter how laudatory, has never been something one could polish on a trophy room shelf. When it comes to tangible evidence of Ted Williams' greatest aspiration, one could do no better than the special artifact presented here, the player copy of the bronze plaque that formally assigns immortality at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
For a man whose uncompromising pursuit of perfection carried him to the heights of athletic celebrity, it would seem only fitting that even Hall of Fame enshrinement wouldn't mellow his scrutiny of particulars. This was a man who could feel the weight of an extra gram in a two-pound Louisville Slugger. One will quickly notice, in any photograph of Williams with his plaque on induction day, that the image of Williams is different than the one we see here. As far as we are aware, Williams remains the only inductee in history to demand a revision.
Here we find the approved format that hangs at Cooperstown today, scaled down to 6.25x8.5", the dimensions of all such player model plaques. While the personal format bronzes are today part of the initial productions, Williams and his contemporaries were presented theirs retroactively. They were issued at the Hall of Fame members only dinner on July 25, 1999, just twelve days after Williams brought down the house at Fenway Park with his All-Star Game appearance.
The weighty bronze on wood plaque presents in pristine condition, still housed in its original black velvet bag embossed in gold with the logo of the Hall of Fame, and in the similar black cardboard box bearing a sticker reading, "T. Williams." The plaque derives from the Williams family directly, with a letter of provenance from Ted's daughter Claudia. It is, quite simply, the most significant artifact from the remarkable career and life of Ted Williams that exists in the private collectibles market. Letter of provenance from Claudia Williams.
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