by Paul Semendinger
February 3, 2025
***
I saw the following on Twitter (X) the other day and it reminded me of a story...
The advertisement above (or one very similar to it) appeared in Life Magaizine in 1946. Two eight-year-old boys, twins, in Norwood, New Jersey saw this ad.
Those boys didn't care, at all, about the cigarettes, but they were drawn in by the words "Baseball Players" and "Big Leagues."
One of those boys, his name was David, decided to become a fan of Stan Musial and his team, the St. Louis Cardinals.
The other boy, Paul, decided to root for Ted Williams and the Boston Red Sox.
Today, the boys are 86-years-old. They both still have a passion for baseball. Both have never waivered from their original decisions.
David, my uncle, still loves the Cardinals.
Paul, my father, loves the Red Sox.
of note, no one has ever been a bigger Red Sox fan, or fan of Ted Williams, than my dad. If you bring up WAR around my dad, he'll tell you about war. He'll tell you about wars that matter (World War II and Korea) - the ones Teddy Ballgame served his country for.
People ask me why my dad became a Red Sox fan. A big part was the ad above. That ad made lifelong baseball fans out of two boys from a small town in northern New Jersey.
(My dad has never held the fact that I became a Yankees fan against me.)
Just talked to my dad who has read every book about Ted Williams and then some...
Ted always stated that he regretted making this ad.
Williams was a non-smoker and an anti-smoker. My guess is that he valued the add money more than his principles.
It's funny how times change (and I write this after my comment on Tim's post relating to the East Haven trolley museum not changing). When I was 8 year old, 25 years after your Dad and Uncle, if I'd seen a ballplayer advertising cigarettes, it would have turned me off that player. I never could stand the smell -- I'd go so far as to call it a stench, one that permeated clothing and furniture -- and even got my parents to stop their occasional smoking. Back then, it was a real problem for me -- you could smoke on the subway, airplanes, restaurants, elevators, office buildings -- and I'd just start coughing from the second someone near me …