They Called Him "Garbage Pail Ted"

When Ted Williams was a boy, he'd stand in center field with a bag of baseballs and proceed to throw each one into the mouth of a tipped-over garbage pail positioned at home plate. It's how he developed his arm strength and his accuracy. It's also how he earned the nickname "Garbage Pail Ted".

1959 Fleer #26, Ted Williams

That last statement is not true.

No one ever called Ted Williams "Garbage Pail Ted". But throwing baseballs into a garbage can from the outfield? At least that part of the story is plausible, isn't it?

Regardless, there is a reason I fabricated the tale.

Recently I picked up the Ted Williams card above as part of a trade. Here's the back of the card.

It's the oldest Ted Williams card I own. Along with it I received a few nice rookie cards, including 1989 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Craig Biggio, and 1989 Upper Deck Gary Sheffield and John Smoltz. 

And do you know what I traded away in exchange?

A stack of original Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. Seems like nonsense, right?

But still, it wasn't perfectly easy to get rid of some of those weird cards from the '80s. I remember opening packs of them with my sister and my mom back then, all of us laughing at the rhyming or alliterative names, the variations, and of course the lowbrow artwork.

 

The nine cards shown above—along with a handful of others—do remain in my collection, and they're enough to bring back those fond memories. As for the rest of them, well, they're in the hands of a collector who's closer to completing some sets. And I have a few great baseball cards to show for it, including a vintage Ted Williams card. Everyone wins.

So here's to Ted Williams. And here's to one of the more bizarre trades (and blog posts) I've made.