Editing Ted Radcliffe (section)

==Retirement==
After leaving baseball, Radcliffe and his wife returned to a life of poverty until 1990, when they were robbed and beaten in their housing project on Chicago's South Side. A news report of this came to the attention of the [[Baseball Assistance Team]], a charity that helps needy ex-players. With the help of the mayor's office, the team helped the couple move into a church-run residence for the elderly.<ref name=autogenerated1 />

[[Image:Double Duty autograph.JPG|thumb|left|Frontispiece of McNary's biography of Radcliffe autographed by its subject]]Writer Kyle McNary met Radcliffe in 1992 when he was trying to learn more about black baseball in his home town of [[Bismarck, North Dakota]]. Radcliffe subsequently suggested that McNary should write his biography and the result was self-published by McNary in 1994. Radcliffe would travel widely to ballgames and became known for his lively good humor and gentle clowning.<ref name=autogenerated2 />

Despite two strokes and other age-related health problems, Radcliffe continued to be active in his community. He received the state of Illinois Historical Committee's Lifetime Achievement Award and was honored by Mayor Richard Daley as an outstanding citizen of Chicago. He has been the guest of three U.S. Presidents at the White House. A WGN documentary about Radcliffe's life, narrated by Morgan Freeman, won an Emmy Award. The Illinois Department of Aging inducted him into their Hall of Fame in 2002.<ref>[https://www2.illinois.gov/aging/HallofFame/Pages/2002.aspx#theodore "2002 Hall of Fame: Performance and Graphic Arts - Theodore 'Double Duty' Radcliffe,"] Illinois Department of Aging website. Retrieved Aug. 22, 2020.</ref>

In 1997, Radcliffe was inducted into the "Yesterday's Negro League Baseball Players Wall of Fame" at [[County Stadium]] in [[Milwaukee]]. In 1999, aged 96, he became the oldest player to appear in a professional game just ahead of [[Buck O'Neil]] and Jim Eriotes. He threw a single pitch for the [[Schaumburg Flyers]] of the [[Northern League (baseball, 1993–2010)|Northern League]]. After his 100th birthday, Double Duty celebrated each year by throwing a ceremonial first pitch for the [[Chicago White Sox]] at [[U.S. Cellular Field]]. On July 27, 2005, he threw the first pitch at [[Rickwood Field]], [[Birmingham, Alabama]].<ref>Birmingham News, 22 July 2005</ref> Two weeks later, Radcliffe died in Chicago on August 11, 2005, due to complications from [[cancer]].

Radcliffe's stories were entertaining but not always reliable. His claim to have seen [[Fidel Castro]] with a cigar at a winter game in [[Cuba]] and his observation that the man "couldn't play" seems unlikely given that Castro would have been just 14 at the time.

[[Raelee Frazier]] cast Ted Radcliffe's twisted broken hands in bronze as part of the 2003 ''Hitters Hands'' series of baseball sculptures that toured the United States in ''Shades of Greatness'', an exhibition sponsored by the [[Negro Leagues Baseball Museum]].<ref>Frazier</ref>