Charlie Wagner: I Was Ted Williams’s Roommate

Ted Williams, Charlie Wagner and Bob Feller

Charlie Wagner was a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox from 1938-1946 and remained with them as a scout and front-office employee for the rest of his life.

During one of our visits, he talked about rooming on the road with Ted Williams at his home in Reading, Pennsylvania in December 1991 - Norman L. Macht

In 1938 I was with the Red Sox and wasn’t pitching enough to stay alive and had an awful time. I didn’t want to sit around and watch other guys pitch. I was going to lose all I had.

So I asked the manager, Joe Cronin, “Why don’t you send me to Minneapolis?” And he did.

And that’s where I began a lifelong friendship with Ted Williams.

He was a rookie at Minneapolis and we roomed together there and in Boston as long as I was an active player.

We were a compatible, early-to-bed pair. Didn’t drink.

The carousers – Foxx and Cramer and a few others – called us the “milk-shake” boys. We didn’t care.

I would kid Ted about my age. He’d say, “How old are you?” I’d say, “A year older than you.” [Wagner was actually six years older.]

Years later we’re at spring training and I’m in the front office and I’m 50 years old and I signed up for the baseball pension and they put my age in some bulletin and Ted read it and said, “You lying so-and-so…”

One year in Boston Ted had the flu and Cronin suggested I room with Foxx for a while. Jimmie had a room by himself. I didn’t see Foxx all week except at the ballpark.

He’d say, “Hey roomie, how we doing?” I’d say, “Oh the room is beautiful.”

But when Foxx hit a home run it had a distinctive ping sound. You didn’t have to be looking to know who hit it.

In those days they’d give you a steamer trunk in spring training and you used that all season. Ted had a lot of outdoor-type clothing in his.

He has two pairs of shoes and I have about 15 and I’m stretching my stuff out and he says, “Where am I going to go with my stuff?”

He never wore a tie but he wore a jacket and looked neat. Well, he wore a tie once, for me. They had a banquet in Reading for my fiftieth year in baseball and Ted was a speaker and he borrowed a tie from me and put it on just for me.

Then he stood up and said, “The minute this thing is over I’m giving this tie back to Charlie.”

Ted would stand in front of a mirror with a bat, studying his stance and his swing. They had these four-poster beds in the room in one hotel.

He’s practicing his swing and I’m lying on the bed watching him and he swings a little too hard and hits one of those bedposts and the whole thing collapses with me on it.

We had no long-term contracts. A hungry player has the motivation to do well and get paid well for it. Ted had that. He’d say, “I’m going to hit and they’re going to pay me the gees.” He called money “the gees.”

He never wanted to be embarrassed. When Ted made up his mind to do something, he’d do it.

You’d hear him say, “You know what he’s gonna do to me today? He’s gonna come in here. Well, I’ll clean his clock.”

Charlie Wagner: Red Sox pitcher and roommate to the greatest hitter that ever lived

I’m pitching in Chicago one day and it’s tied in extra innings and he said to me, “Do you think you can hold them if I hit one out of here?” I said, “Yeah, you get ‘em and I’ll do it.” He said, “You got it. I have an early dinner date. You better hold ‘em.”

So he hit it out of the park in the eleventh inning and we won. That’s how he could determine himself. He believed in himself. 

Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey invited me to Fenway Park for Ted’s last game. Before the game, Ted said, “I’m gonna hit one out of here today.” And he did.

One day in spring training, Donie Bush, who had been with Detroit for 22 years and was my manager in Minneapolis, and Eddie Collins, a Hall of Fame second baseman who was then the Red Sox general manager, were watching Ted hit and they agreed they had never seen a better hitter.

They tried to think of who would come the closest and finally settled on Shoeless Joe Jackson. They said they never saw Jackson hit a ball that wasn’t hard hit with a pop to it.