Cord Byrd: “I, too, am proud of Ted Williams. I hope the two Senators will allow me to cosponsor the resolution. As one who grew up…”

“I, too, am proud of Ted Williams. I hope the two Senators will allow me to cosponsor the resolution. As one who grew up in the Great Depression, I liked baseball. It was 1927. May I say to my two Senators from Massachusetts, it was 1927 when Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, beat his own home run record when he swatted 60 home runs. I can remember those days when I watched for the baseball scores. I watched for Babe Ruth. I watched for Lou Gehrig. I watched for the Murderous Four on the New York Yankees team. That was the year in which Jack Dempsey fought Gene Tunney to regain the title. May I say to my dear friend, Ted Kennedy, Jack Dempsey was a hero of the coal miners. He mined coal in Logan County, WV. So my foster father told me we would go down to the community grill, which was a place where one could buy Coca-Colas or a soda. I mean they were good Coca-Colas in those days, and you got them for 5 cents, a bottle of Coke for 5 cents. So he said we would go down to the community grill and listen to that fight. Well, we went on that night. And there were fully 30 or 40 coal miners around that radio. I went home a disappointed lad because Jack Dempsey was my hero at that point as far as sports figures were concerned, as well as Babe Ruth. And I went home a disappointed lad because Jack Dempsey did not win the fight. I did not hear the fight.”