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Bill, he attended the Knapp School of Music in Chicago, playing trumpet in a small band jazz. (Mount Pleasant's coaching career was cut short by the First World War, during which he served as a first lieutenant in an African American battalion.) Although Ted Williams did not gain fame in football, he was a dedicated athlete for his entire life. The Reservation, was published in 1976, the year the United States was celebrating its bicentennial, somewhat of an irony when one considers the fact that the American Revolution might never had succeeded had it not been for the uncelebrated support of Ted's Tuscarora ancestors who brought food to the starving armies of General George Washington at Valley Forge.1 Ted's book can be described as a classic of Native writing for more reasons than one.

Every fan I ever met had a defining, first memory about baseball and when it became more than just a game. Since I was seven years old, baseball has been my passion. After Game 4 of the 1941 World Series, my heart and soul had been given to the New York Yankees. That primordial moment came when I heard radio announcer Bob Elson describe Tommy Henrich's dash to first base after Mickey Owen muffed the third strike for what should have been the final out. The 1946 season was a bitter disappointment, but the Newark Bears, the Yankees top AAA International League farm team, gave me great hope for 1947 with three terrific September call- ups. Yogi Berra, built like a fire plug, didn't look like a catcher but maybe could make it in the outfield, hit everything thrown near him; Bobby Brown, also a lefthanded batter, smooth, stylish, like Berra always making contact; and Vic Raschi, a horse of a pitcher who won his two late season starts.

Ruttman talks about Ted Williams' mammoth home run struck in 1946 at Fenway Park in Boston MA. The description he gave of the shot being a line drive rather than a big fly is demonstrated by its bouncing another twenty rows or so to the very top of the yawning bleachers. A fly would descend far more vertically and bounce more upwardly than laterally. Ted's monumental line drive was little affected by the wind, if at all. It was going where it was going from the instant it left the bat.

Life in the United States was slowly returning to normal. The war in Europe had ended in May 1945. By September the War in the Pacific was over. Soldiers like my Dad were returning from World War II and reuniting with their eager families. More than five hundred had been Major League baseball players. Months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Major League Baseball had reached new heights of popularity. In Philadelphia's Shibe Field, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams crushed a ball into the right field speaker to lift his average to .406, winning the batting title and, unknown to him at the time, becoming the last Major Leaguer to hit over .400. The Cleveland Indians' Bob Feller had a family- related draft exemption. He was on his way to Chicago to discuss his 1942 contract when he heard the news of Pearl Harbor. Instead of negotiating a new contract, he told Indians General Manager Cy Slapnicka that he was enlisting in the Navy, giving up a $100,000 salary to become a Chief Petty Officer aboard the USS Alabama.

My earliest memory of Major League Baseball was in 1944 as a nine- year- old boy living in Somerville, Massachusetts. I remember that two teams from St. Louis- the Browns and the Cardinals- played in the World Series that year. But I really came of age as a baseball fan in 1945. I attended my first Major League game in May of that year. My father was stationed in the Pacific during the war, so my mother took me to the game (after, I'm sure, much pleading on my part). Most of the great baseball players were in the service in 1945. As a result, the major league rosters contained an assortment of those too young for the draft, those too old, and those unfit for medical reasons. For example, Joe Nuxhall was fifteen years old when he pitched for Cincinnati in 1944, Cass Michaels was barely seventeen when he signed a major league contract with the Chicago White Sox, and Carl Scheib was sixteen when he was pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics.

Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project, a 7.8 mile system of bridges and underground highways and ramps, is the most expensive public works project ever undertaken in the United States.The original cost estimate of 2.6 billion has already been exceeded by 12 billion, and the project will not be completed until 2005, seven years late.