Jul 7, 2002 By Hal Bock Ap Sports Writer 4 min read

One magical night three years ago, the best baseball players in the world were transfixed, turned once again into little kids, awed by the presence of an idol. Ted Williams had that effect on people.

With the 1999 All-Star game to be played in Fenway Park, major league baseball had the great good sense to bring Williams back to Boston.

In the flower of his youth, when he was the best hitter in the world, this was his playground, his place, the ballpark he called home. So inviting him back was a no-brainer. Ted Williams would throw out the first pitch.

It was some show.

The 80-year-old Williams – weakened by a series of strokes, confined to a wheelchair, his eyesight failing – was driven through the center field gates in a green golf cart. The other greats had already been introduced – Aaron, Mays, Feller, Musial. And now it was time for the main event.

Williams’ name brought down the house.

Thunderous cheers rolled down, section by section, an outpouring of emotion by fans who seemed to know this would be one last chance to salute a baseball icon.

So they stood to cheer him, not only in the stands but on the field, as well. And he waved his cap in acknowledgment.

Now the All-Stars began drifting toward him, as if drawn by a magnet. They converged at the pitcher’s mound – Williams surrounded by a crowd of the game’s best players, all of them looking now like so many sandlotters, tentative at first, like little kids about to meet a real major leaguer.

That’s when the tears began to flow.

Williams was helped from the cart, steadied by Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr., each nearing the end of their own Hall of Fame careers. With Carlton Fisk, another Hall of Famer, crouched behind the plate wearing a suit and Red Sox cap, Williams tossed the ball to him.

Fisk jogged to the mound to hug a hero.

When the ceremony was over, the All-Stars surrounded Williams again, paying homage to one of baseball’s greatest players. There was an outpouring of emotion, on the field and off.

“I don’t think you could capture it any better than when you had all of baseball gathered around him on the field, in the golf cart,” New York Yankees ace Roger Clemens said.

Knots of players crowded around Williams – players who had achieved their own fame – all of them almost dumbstruck by the game’s last .400 hitter. They were slow to leave, trying to hang on to the moment, a memory that would last a lifetime.

“Tears were coming out of Ted’s eyes,” Colorado’s Larry Walker said. “I had to turn away because tears were coming out my eyes, too.”

Mark McGwire had broken the home run record the year before. Now he bent over to talk hitting with the master of the craft.

“When you have a chance to meet one of the best hitters in the game, and you see tears running down his eyes for the appreciation the fans and all of us gave him, it’s quite a special time,” McGwire said. “I’m just happy he knows who I am, and he talked to me.”

Williams asked the slugger if he noticed the smell of wood, almost as if it were burning, when he fouled pitches off. It was a treasured memory he had of another time, a time when he made a study of the science of hitting.

McGwire said, yes, he did.

Williams always talked hitting. A year after the All-Star outpouring, he appeared at the Yogi Berra Museum where he met Ed Kranepool. His mind still sharp, he asked what to him seemed an obvious question.

“What was it like to hit against Sandy Koufax?” he wondered. “Threw overhand, didn’t he?”

It was as if he wanted to know, just in case.