In the long and cherished history of the Boston Red Sox, the team has managed to flourish with, and despite of, some of the most oddly reclusive players in the game of baseball. These stars of the diamond have often been compared to Greta Garbo, the famous actress and movie star. She made the mold for the term “Drama Queen” and lived in opulent seclusion.
Ted Williams always proved to be elusive, avoiding reporters and adulation from fans. He refused to tip his cap to the Fenway Faithful. It won him the accolade of being the “Garbo of the Dugout” to the Boston media in the early 1940s.
The press referred to the famous film diva and her penchant for “wanting to be alone,” also applying it to Ted. In her classic film Grand Hotel, Garbo’s ballet dancer character complained, “I just want to be alone.” Art and life imitated itself, as the drama queen of all time, soon became like the queens and oddballs she played on screen. She quit movies and avoided social contact with the public.
So it was with Williams. He wanted to shun the crowds, but his public life thrust him into it. He hit .406 in 1941, but his war heroics as a fighter pilot in two wars made him more than just a great ballplayer. He was living as a legend. Pointed out in the streets of Boston, wearing a characteristic Hawaiian shirt, he often had to dash away from hordes of screaming children who chased him.
Ted Williams never won a World Series for the Red Sox, though he came close several times—notably in 1946 and 1949. Of course, one must remember that Garbo herself never won an Oscar for her roles, though she came close with several films. The year Williams came into the American League, Garbo won her final Oscar nomination. The year Ted batted .406, Garbo quit movies and walked away from her public.
As for Manny Ramirez, he too hated the fame in Boston he engendered by being Manny. He wished in 2005 he could play in an obscure place like Anaheim where he could go shopping in the local mall unnoticed. He was a kid raised in New York City who resorted finally to giving interviews in Spanish with a translator by his side.
Quitting on the Red Sox, Ramirez took his act to Hollywood for a time with the Dodgers, but if Los Angeles proved too much for Garbo, how could Manny have thought he’d be happy there? Now in Tampa, he can catch fish where Ted loved to escape the crowds with his fishing pole during the offseason.
For those who say Daisuke Matsuzaka does not belong in the same league as the heavy hitters of Williams and Ramirez, you may have a point, as Dice-K is a pitcher whose reputation preceded him, but alas has not blossomed in the Major Leagues. To earn the sobriquet of the Garbo of the Dugout, surely one must have more than a dramatic and elusive personality. There should be some awards or championships. In that regard, Dice-K has simply not delivered the baseball goods. Yet, he has shown all the regal solitude of Garbo.
Matsuzaka has a personal translator for his press needs in Boston, which allows him to ignore questions he does not care to answer and buffers him from the press. In previous seasons, he gave interviews in Japan that criticized the Red Sox, and he misrepresented injuries to the organization. He keeps his personal life totally private and in Spring Training this year, he could not name a single Red Sox player or coach whom he had grown close to in four years.
Yes, fans, Dice-K is keeping alive the Boston tradition of the baseball drama queen. Whatever else happens this season, Dice-K wins this year’s Garbo of the Dugout, hands down!
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