The Teammates

I'm a baseball Yankees fan but I knew about the great RedSox's Hall of Fame Ted Williams. INMO the best hitter of all time. Bought this book to learn more about him and his teammates who played with him.The Teammates is a small 218 page book very well written by David Halberstam. David won a Pulitzer for his reporting in Vietnam and is the author of 13 best sellers, so I knew he was a great author. The Teammates is a fast paced book, with no boring parts that I read in one day. I couldn't put it down. It has some nice B/W pictures too.We see the great Ted Williams dieing in a wheel chair with a leaking valve in his heart and other serious medical problems. Two of three old teammate best friends decide to drive over a thousand miles to see him for the last time before he passes away. Dick Flavin an ultra fan goes too. Bobby Doerr (RedSox Hall of Fame) can't make it as his elderly wife has had two stokes and he must be near her side helping her. The great Dom DiMaggio ( Yankee Joe DiMaggio brother) goes even though he had been fighting a severe crippling bone disease. The legendary contact hitter Johnny Pesky makes it too as well as the ultra fan Dick Flavin. The trip by car from Marion to Hernando took 3 days.We see the baseball stories from all these great players and their history.I really empathised with these men, now all old in their 80s when the book was wrote. This IS NOT just a baseball book. The reader is blessed reading a true friendship book and seeing that the great loud demanding " got to be the best in life" Ted Williams really needed the steady even tempered soft spoken Bobby Doerr to counter his life style. Also Dom, he called him Dommy, was his best friend he loved so much. Williams cant understand why he never was elected in the Hall of Fame. Little Johnny Presky a superb contact hitter with little power was nicknamed "The Needle" because of his long hooked nose on such a small frame. Together these great ball players were the core of the RedSox in the Redsox glory days.You don't have to be a baseball fan to like this book. The emotions of these men toward each other are great. True friendship. Plus lots of baseball statistics and stories. I really liked this book 4 1/3 stars.

Loved this book. I grew up watching the Red Sox, both disappointments and triumphs. Ted Williams was a constant topic for my dad and I to discuss and sometimes argue, but baseball in its larger context, was the glue that defined much of the relationship between father and son.A lifetime friendship is a beautiful thing. These four heroes and patriots defined what life can be to have meaning, and the pathos of Ted Williams becoming ravaged by old age. Only real friends can see past the loss of vitality and the illness and know their great friend was a good man, who drove them all crazy sometimes, for over 60 years, but never did the four friends let any challenge split them up.David Halberstam has written a masterpiece about real men and cleared up some of what I remember about the 50’s and 60’s.

When Williams and Pesky and Dimaggio and Doerr were beginning to form the bonds of a friendship that lasted their lifetimes, I was learning to walk and get toilet trained. Yet, as soon as I began to learn of the game of baseball and the Boston Red Sox they became a part of my enjoyment of the game. After my first trip to Fenway to see the Sox play the PHILADELPHIA ATHLETCS, I returned home with an envelope of 8 x 10 pictures of each player on the team whom I arranged on my bedroom wall in the order in which they batted. Pitchers had their own spot and the subs were rotated in and out of the lineup. But the above four were almost always in the starting lineup. So for one who has been a member of Red Sox Nation from the time he learned about baseball, these men have been a part of my life and memory.What a treat it was to have the author explore their memories of the beginning of their friendship and explain how it has endured for all time. Those were different times. So different that the bond that these men forged could never happen now in today's free agent, designated hitter, over expanded game. They came from humble beginnings; they were joined by fate as much as anything else and yet they cared for one another, not just while playing baseball, but for the rest of their lives. The glue that held them together was Ted Williams. "The greatest hitter that ever lived" was a man you either understood and loved or a man you could not get away from fast enough. He did not suffer fools or people who did not understand the game, but in his own way he understood the importance of friends and that friendship is not for convenience, but for life.So, thanks to the author, I got to know more about my childhood heroes, but more importantly I got reminded about what is important about how we live our lives, caring for those we love and remembering to take the time to smell the roses.

2003年、アメリカで発売された野球書籍の中で、マイケル・ルイスの"Moneyball"とともに話題を独占した一冊。著者は野球ノンフィクションの第一人者、デヴィット・ハルバースタム。「最後の四割打者」テッド・ウィリアムスと、ボストン・レッドソックス時代の同僚選手３人の親交を描く。不世出の大打者と、努力によって栄光の座を勝ち取った仲間の交流を、ウィリアムスの死を軸に、過去と現在をつなぎながら話は進められる。1940、50年代という、野球が真の意味で国民的娯楽であった時代の、選手たちの息遣いが感じられるのは、ハルバースタムの野球への愛情と、取材対象の内部に入り込む取材能力のなせる業だろう。ただ、翻訳は詰めの甘さが散見される。人名の誤記、記録の間違いは訳者のアメリカ野球に対する理解の薄さを、そして、誤記誤植の多さは編集者の編集能力の水準を示しており、完成度は決して高いとはいえない。「2004年大リーグ日本開幕シリーズ記念」とあるが、もし３月末日の出版を目指しての「急ぎの仕事」であるなら、残念としか言いようがない。自己の作品に対して徹底した「品質管理」を行うハルバースタム。その彼の翻訳だけに、より繊細な注意が払われていれば、原著の面白さをより的確に伝えられただろう。なお、原題は"The Team mate"であり、邦題は編集部の発案により付されたものである。

知人に是非と薦められ、探しまくりましたが見つからず、初めてAmazonで購入しました。殆ど新品に近く、商品としては驚くほど良かった。さて中身は・・・変な翻訳ですごく読み難かった。日本語が変。何を書いてあるのか判らなくて、少し前に戻って読み直す事、多数。途中から判らなくても強引に読み進めたら、素晴らしい人間模様があり、（原作は）とても良い本なんだろうなと推測できました。薦めてくれた知人にその旨を伝えたら、「注意しなかったっけ。最悪な翻訳だから、気にせず読めって」と言われました。ちなみにその方は英語が出来るんで原書で読んで大感動だったそうです。出版社の方、別な翻訳で出しなおしてくれませんか？題名も原題の「チームメイト」のほうが良いと思います。

人生で、一つ星レビューを書くのは二度目です。ここまでひどいのも珍しいです。　私は、故ハルバースタム氏の著作はほとんど読んでいますが、この作品こそ最高傑作であると今も思っております。そんな作品が、ひどい出版社と論外の翻訳者のために滅茶苦茶にされてしまいました。ここまでくると、人類の活字文化に対する冒涜です。　翻訳者は野球を知らないのみならず、英語の基本的理解そのものに問題があります。もちろん、基本的チェックを怠った編集者にも重大な責任があります。原文と比べて、最初の五ページで私が気付いただけで、　　・発言した人間を取り違えている。（妻が夫を嗜めているのに、夫が反論した形になっている）　・「タバコ」と「葉巻」を間違えている。（タバコのみが一日二本だけで我慢できますか？）　・オレゴン州で病身の妻を介護する人が「今もレッドソックスで働いている」ことになっている。　　（少しでも北米の地理を知っていれば、ありえないことがおわかりでしょう）　・「結婚63年目の妻」が「63歳の妻」になっている。（夫より二十歳近く若返っていますよ）　・原文にない「スリーA 」が追加されている。（翻訳者さん、”スリーA”とは何かご存じですか？）　・時系列がおかしい。（メジャーリーガーが、クラブハウスでマイナーリーグのボーイと会うことはありませんよ）　・「呼ばれたとき」ではなく、「本人が電話をかけるとき」が正しい。　・「球界を去ってからは、さらに厳しく、理解しがたかった」何が理解しがたいのか、読者が「理解しがたい」です。　・「スコットランドとアイルランドの伝統的な血」を受け継いでいる人が、わずか三行目あとで「母親はメキシコ系アメリカ人」となっている。　もう一度繰り返しますが、最初の五ページでこれです。日本語もおかしいですし、人間の基本的な常識さえ忘れている部分が多々あることがおわかりでしょう。到底プロの仕事とは言えません。　日本語で、こういう状態をあらわす恰好の表現があります。「安物買いの銭失い」です。　翻訳は、きちんとしたプロに依頼するようにしましょう。

and felt like in car with them. Do not need to know about baseball . All about real men and a point in their lives

Immensely readable and full of insight into the personalities of men. Although I followed their careers at the time they were in their prime, basically they were just names to me. Learning about what they were like has made them real and human. I am puzzled, however, by the fact that Ted's managerial career with the Washington Senators that lasted three seasons is not even mentioned or looked at as further insight into how he related to others.