Boston Athenæum

December 9, 2013 at the Boston Athenæum. Born in 1918 in San Diego, Ted Williams would spend most of his life disguising his Mexican heritage. During his 22 years with the Boston Red Sox, Williams electrified crowds across America—and shocked them, too: his notorious clashes with the press and fans threatened his reputation. Yet while he was a God in the batter’s box, he was profoundly human once he stepped away from the plate. Mr. Bradlee—the only biographer to have full access to Williams’s personal papers, letters, and home movies—has spent ten years gleaning new details about the athlete’s hardscrabble childhood; his spectacular baseball career; his years as a “Top Gun’’ pilot in two wars; a private life marked by affairs, explosion and dysfunction; and finally, the macabre cryonics affair that followed his death.