The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship

Found on Amazon here

This weekend, I finished reading The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship by David Halberstam.  If you have not read this book, I definitely recommend it.  Not only is it an interesting book about past Red Sox greats, it shows how important friendship was to these four teammates.  (There's a link to buy the book on Amazon underneath the photo above.)

If you didn't know, the teammates are Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, John Pesky, and Bobby Doerr.  These Red Sox legends played together on the Red Sox from 1942-1951.  Of course, I had heard of all these men prior to reading the book, and I knew they were great friends.  However, I didn't know just how strong of a bond these men shared.

I'm not going to ruin the book for you because I found the stories told throughout were done so honestly, it was as if reliving times.  The book starts with a car ride in October 2001.  John Pesky, Dominic DiMaggio, and a friend were on a journey to visit a dying Ted Williams in Florida.  Bobby Doerr lived in Oregon and would be unable to make the trip.

The book follows these four players throughout their lives and careers, showing how their bond of friendship formed and changed throughout the years.  In the book, the players' personal lives, accomplishments and disappointments, are touched upon, but their friendship is definitely the forefront.  To think their friendship lasted over fifty years after their playing careers is remarkable.

I think reading The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship is an important read for anyone, whether their a baseball fan or not.  We live in a world where everything seems so disposable, including friendships.  Think about it, we've replaced interacting with friends in person to calling on the telephone to checking their profiles on Facebook.  I've noticed this more since I've moved so far away from my friends in Iowa.

In this book, here are four men who have had great success in a high-profile sport.  All four players found varying success after their baseball careers were long over; and despite differing personalities, they've managed to remain friends and support each other for a lifetime.  They knew the importance of their friendship.  I wish more people were like them and had friendships like theirs.

Photo from Flickr.com/photos/artfan70