He played his last game more than five decades ago, and has been dead (or at least frozen) for 15 years, but Ted Williams is still very much alive in the minds of baseball fans.

Producers of the American Masters series announced that the Splendid Splinter will be the subject of an upcoming documentary the first baseball player to be so profiled.

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A major American cultural figure whose story has never been properly told, Ted Williams is a fitting first, Michael Kantor, American Masters series executive producer, said in a statement. This film will reveal the man behind the legendary .406 batting average: complex, misunderstood and profoundly human.

Its not exactly true that Williamss story has never been properly told. In recent years, the Hall of Famer was the subject of not one but two excellent biographies, both written by former reporters at the Boston Globe: Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero by Leigh Montville and Ben Bradlee Jr.s The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams.

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The American Masters doc, slated to premiere next summer on PBS in honor of Williamss centennial, is being co-produced with Major League Baseball and David Ortizs Big Papi Productions, among others. The film will look at Williamss incredible baseball career and his service as a decorated combat pilot in the Korean War. Its not clear if the doc will discuss at all the bizarre and troubling disposition of Williams after he died, when his head was removed and frozen at the Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which deep-freezes bodies (or just heads) in the hope that scientific advances will allow them to be revived in the future.

In addition to Williams, the new season of American Masters will feature documentaries about filmmaker Richard Linklater, artist Tyrus Wong, writer Edgar Allan Poe, and entertainer Bob Hope.

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Ted Williams will be first baseball player to get 'American Masters' treatment - The Boston Globe

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