Baseball slugger Ted Williams to be honored with stamp

CONWAY, Mass (Reuters) - Revered baseball slugger Ted Williams, who played for the Boston Red Sox, will be recognized on a new U.S. "forever" postage stamp in 2012, the U.S. Postal Service said on Friday.

Nicknamed "Teddy Baseball" and "The Kid," Williams played his whole career as a Boston Red Sox left fielder and is considered one of the best Major League hitters of all time.

Williams is the fourth and final player in the Postal Service's Major League All Stars Stamps series honoring players who made an indelible mark on American baseball.

Illustrator Kadir Nelson based his artwork for Williams' stamp on historic photos, as he has for the three previously named players also chosen to be honored with the stamps -- Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, and Willie Stargell.

A 19-time all-star, Williams was the last player to bat over .400 for a single season, in 1941, when he hit .406. He won six American League batting titles, batted .344 for his career, and collected 521 home runs.

Williams made his debut in 1939, and he played his final season in 1960 but missed several seasons when he served as a U.S. Marine Corps pilot during World War Two and in the Korean War. Williams was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.

After Williams died in 2002, one of his sons and a daughter decided to have his remains frozen cryonically, saying that they and Williams had agreed to put him into a condition called biostasis.

In a procedure known as neuroseparation, his body was separated from his head and both were stored in different steel tanks filled with liquid nitrogen. Another daughter had contested the process, saying Williams had wanted to be cremated.

USPS "forever" stamps are always equal in value to the current first-class letter postage rate.

(Reporting by Zach Howard; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)