TRUE ARTIST: TED WATTS

1942-2015

Without ever having had the good luck to have met the man, I do feel fortunate to have been one of Ted Watts' art subjects. It was totally unexpected. A regional literary publication ran an article I had written for them and called upon Ted Watts to draw my picture to use with the article, from a photo of me they asked for that I figured they would use. Watts graduated from high school in Miami, Okla., and his classmates included some I played baseball with from Miami. He lived in the region all his life and passed away in 2015 in Oswego. He specialized in sports figures, such as Mickey Mantle (above.) 

 Some of his high school chums I knew from baseball were Mike Cherry, Larry Ketcher, Dave Foster, and Bill Barnett. Cherry later was killed in a hunting accident. Watts' first published work was a panel cartoon in 1959 for his high school newspaper in Miami, The Broadcaster, with Cherry as the subject.

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