As Ted Williams began the 1950’s in his 30’s, the Splendid Splinter was still going strong. Despite a severe arm injury in the 1950 All-Star Game and his military service in the Korean War in 1952, Williams still put up gaudy numbers, including five seasons in a row from 1954-58 where he batted .345, .356, .345, .388 and .328 respectively and won two batting titles. Williams would retire in 1960 with a lofty .344 average, 521 home runs and was first ballot Hall of Famer in 1966, receiving 93.4% of the vote.

Offered here is one of the Boston Red Sox caps worn by Ted Williams during the 1950s. This all-navy wool cap was manufactured by Tim McAuliffe Inc. Quality Athletic Equipment of Boston and has the iconic “B” embroidered in red and white stitching on the front. The inside of the cap has a white leather sweat band, which displays outstanding use and has a green under brim. The McAuliffe tag is affixed on the inside back of the hat on the leather sweat band and the hat’s model number “KM Pro Cap 7” is stamped on the side leather. Williams’ number “9” can be seen in faded red marker on the opposite side of the stamped “KM Pro Cap 7”, along with "TW"that is stitched in to the left of the "9". Williams signed his name in black marker on the white leather sweat band and inscribed “To Mike”. According to the letter of provenance that accompanies this item, this hat was given to Mike Saunders who obtained this hat from the Red Sox bat boy and later presented this hat to Ted Williams for him to sign it and the authenticity of the hat was verified by Williams. This extraordinary cap comes with a LOA from Mears and the letter of provenance from Mike Saunders for the game use. There is also a LOA from JSA for the signature.

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