Ted Williams

Based on Wikipedia: Ted Williams

The Last Man to Hit .400

On the final day of the 1941 baseball season, Ted Williams faced a choice that would define his legend. His batting average stood at .39955—technically .400 if rounded up. His manager offered him a seat on the bench. Play it safe. Take the record.

Williams refused.

"If I'm going to be a .400 hitter," he said, "I want more than my toenails on the line."

He went 6-for-8 that day, finishing at .406. No one has done it since. More than eight decades later, that number remains baseball's most unbreakable barrier, a feat that seems to recede further into impossibility with each passing season.

The Kid from San Diego

Theodore Samuel Williams was born on August 30, 1918, in San Diego, California. His parents named him after President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, though Williams hated the nickname so much he eventually amended his birth certificate to read "Theodore" instead.

His childhood was shaped by absence. His father—a soldier, sheriff, and photographer who had served in the Philippine-American War—was rarely around. His mother, May Venzor, was a Mexican-American evangelist who devoted herself to the Salvation Army with a fervor that left little time for her sons. Young Ted and his brother cringed when she dragged them to the Army's street-corner revivals.

Williams later reflected on his mother's Mexican heritage with characteristic bluntness: "If I had my mother's name, there is no doubt I would have run into problems in those days, considering the prejudices people had in Southern California." His family tree was a tapestry of the American experience—Welsh, English, and Irish on his father's side; Spanish, Basque, Russian, and American Indian roots through his mother.

But baseball was his escape. He spent endless hours at a field in San Diego's North Park neighborhood, a patch of dirt that would later be renamed Ted Williams Field. At eight years old, his uncle Saul Venzor—a former semi-pro pitcher who had once faced Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe Gordon in an exhibition game—taught him to throw. His childhood heroes were Pepper Martin of the St. Louis Cardinals and Bill Terry of the New York Giants.

By high school, Williams was already attracting attention from the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees. But his mother thought he was too young to leave home, so he signed with the local Pacific Coast League club, the San Diego Padres. It was a decision that would redirect the course of baseball history—not to New York or St. Louis, but to Boston.

A Brown Cow in a Field of White Cows

The young Williams played backup for the Padres, stuck behind Vince DiMaggio and Ivey Shiver. His break came when Shiver quit to become a high school football coach in Georgia. Williams posted modest numbers in 1936—a .271 average in 42 games—but someone was watching.

Eddie Collins, the Boston Red Sox general manager, had come to scout Bobby Doerr and a shortstop named George Myatt. He found something else entirely.

"It wasn't hard to find Ted Williams," Collins later explained. "He stood out like a brown cow in a field of white cows."

By 1937, Williams had broken into the lineup full-time, hitting .291 with 23 home runs. Collins called the Padres' owner twice throughout the season, and in December, he made his move: $35,000, two major leaguers, and two minor leaguers for the gangly nineteen-year-old with the sweet left-handed swing.

The Science of Hitting

What separated Williams from other great hitters wasn't just natural talent—it was obsession. He studied hitting the way a physicist studies quantum mechanics, breaking down the swing into its component parts and rebuilding it from first principles.

During his time with the Minneapolis Millers in 1938, Williams met Rogers Hornsby, one of only two players in history to hit over .400 three times (the other being Ty Cobb). Hornsby's advice was deceptively simple: "Get a good pitch to hit." It sounds obvious, but Williams turned it into a religion. He famously said that his goal was to "get a good pitch to hit" and "don't let the pitcher get ahead of you."

Williams also sought out Hugh Duffy, who hit an astonishing .438 in 1894, and Bill Terry, the last National Leaguer to hit .400 (in 1930). He even argued with Ty Cobb about hitting mechanics—Williams believed in swinging slightly upward to generate lift, while Cobb insisted batters should hit down on the ball. Modern analytics have vindicated Williams completely; launch angle optimization is now one of baseball's most discussed metrics.

In Minneapolis, his obsession paid immediate dividends. He hit .366 with 46 home runs and 142 runs batted in, winning the American Association Triple Crown—leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in simultaneously. It was a preview of things to come.

The Splendid Splinter Arrives

Williams reached the major leagues in 1939, and the Red Sox were ready for him. They had traded their starting right fielder, Ben Chapman, despite his .340 average the previous year, just to make room on the roster. Boston Globe sportswriter Gerry Moore noted that "not since Joe DiMaggio broke in with the Yankees has any baseball rookie received the nationwide publicity" that Williams was getting.

He debuted against the New York Yankees on April 20, going 1-for-4 against Red Ruffing. That game holds a melancholy distinction: it was the only time Williams and Lou Gehrig ever played against each other. Gehrig, ravaged by the disease that would bear his name, retired just weeks later.

Williams' rookie numbers were spectacular: .327 average, 31 home runs, and 145 runs batted in—leading the league in that last category. He was the first rookie ever to lead the American League in RBIs. Though there was no official Rookie of the Year award in 1939, Babe Ruth himself declared Williams the best new player in baseball. "That was good enough for me," Williams later said.

Williamsburg

The Red Sox were so committed to their young star that they literally reshaped their ballpark for him. In 1940, they added a new bullpen in right field at Fenway Park, reducing the distance from home plate from 400 feet to 380 feet. The area earned an immediate nickname: "Williamsburg."

They also moved him from right field to left field—partly to keep the sun out of his eyes, partly to make room for Dom DiMaggio (Vince's brother, who became Williams' lifelong friend). They flip-flopped him in the batting order with Jimmie Foxx, the reigning home run champion, hoping Williams would see more hittable pitches.

The strategy backfired slightly. Pitchers proved willing to walk Williams rather than face him, even with Foxx waiting on deck. Williams hit .344 in 1940 but with fewer home runs than his rookie year. More significantly, he caused a controversy in August when he called his $10,000 salary "peanuts" and complained about Boston's press corps. The writers never forgave him.

The only real fun Williams admitted to having that season was an oddity: on August 24, he pitched the last two innings of a 12-1 loss to Detroit. He allowed one earned run, struck out one batter, and left the mound satisfied.

The .406 Season

The 1941 season began badly. Williams broke a bone in his right ankle during spring training, limiting him to pinch-hitting for the first two weeks. His teammate Bobby Doerr later speculated that the injury was actually a blessing—it forced Williams to put less pressure on his right foot, subtly improving his swing mechanics.

By late May, Williams was locked in. He hit .536 over one stretch, his average climbing above .400 on May 25 and continuing upward to .430. At the All-Star break, he was hitting .406 with 16 home runs.

The 1941 All-Star Game produced one of the most dramatic moments in baseball history. Williams batted fourth, behind Joe DiMaggio, who was in the midst of his 56-game hitting streak—another record that has never been broken. With the American League trailing 5-3 in the ninth inning and runners on first and third, Williams came to the plate with two outs.

He hit a three-run homer to win the game.

"That game-winning home run remains to this day the most thrilling hit of my life," Williams said decades later.

As the season wound down, Williams became a national obsession. Even Yankees fans rooted for him. When pitcher Lefty Gomez walked Williams with the bases loaded in September—after Williams had already gotten three straight hits—the New York crowd booed their own pitcher mercilessly. Williams later said "just about everybody was rooting for me" to reach the magical number.

Then came September 28, the season's final day. A doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics. Williams' average: .39955.

The rest is legend.

A Career Interrupted by War

Williams won his first Triple Crown in 1942, leading the league in batting average (.356), home runs (36), and runs batted in (137). It should have been the beginning of a dynasty. Instead, it was an ending.

World War II called, and Williams answered. He spent three years in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, learning to fly. Those weren't token years of service—Williams became a combat pilot, honing skills he would need again a decade later.

He returned to baseball in 1946 as if he'd never left. He won his first American League Most Valuable Player Award and led the Red Sox to the World Series—the only one he would ever play in. They lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.

In 1947, Williams won his second Triple Crown. Only twelve players in baseball history have won even one. Williams had two before his thirtieth birthday.

Back to War

Then Korea happened.

Williams was recalled to active duty in 1952, and this time there was nothing ceremonial about his service. He flew 39 combat missions as a Marine aviator, often as wingman to future astronaut and Senator John Glenn. On one mission, his plane was hit by enemy fire. Unable to lower his landing gear or use his radio, Williams brought the burning aircraft back to base, crash-landed at over 200 miles per hour, and escaped moments before it was consumed by flames.

He missed most of two seasons—1952 and 1953—to the war. He was 34 years old when he returned, well past the prime years for most athletes. The lost seasons represented perhaps 500 at-bats, maybe 30 home runs, possibly a third Triple Crown. We'll never know.

The Twilight Years

What we do know is that Williams didn't slow down. In 1957, at age 39, he hit .388—the highest average in baseball that year. He won the batting title again in 1958, at 40, hitting .328. No one that old had ever won a batting championship before.

Williams retired after the 1960 season. In his final at-bat, at Fenway Park, he did what he'd always done: he hit a home run. The crowd roared for a curtain call, but Williams never tipped his cap. He never had, not once in his career, no matter how the Boston fans cheered or jeered. "Gods do not answer letters," the writer John Updike observed in his famous essay about that day.

The numbers Williams left behind remain staggering: a .344 career batting average, 521 home runs, and a .482 on-base percentage—the highest in baseball history. His 1.116 on-base plus slugging percentage ranks second all-time. He made the All-Star team nineteen times, won two MVP awards (and probably deserved more), and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966 on his first ballot.

Life After Baseball

Williams managed the Washington Senators from 1969 to 1972, following the team when it moved to Texas and became the Rangers. He was an adequate manager but nothing special—his genius had always been personal, not transferable.

His true post-baseball passion was fishing. Williams became one of the greatest sport fishermen in history, hosting a television program about the craft and earning induction into the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame. He attacked fishing with the same obsessive precision he'd brought to hitting: studying the quarry, optimizing his technique, refusing to accept anything less than mastery.

He also devoted himself to the Jimmy Fund, a charity supporting cancer research at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Williams' involvement helped raise millions of dollars over decades. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

The Complicated Hero

Williams was not an easy man. He feuded with sportswriters throughout his career, and they repaid him by costing him at least one MVP award—in 1947, one writer left him off the ballot entirely out of spite. He could be profane, temperamental, and stubborn. He spat toward fans who booed him. He never tipped his cap.

But he was also fiercely principled. His Hall of Fame induction speech included a plea for the inclusion of Negro League stars—a position that was controversial in 1966 but led, eventually, to changes in how the Hall considered players who had been excluded from the major leagues by baseball's color barrier. He quietly visited sick children for decades, rarely seeking publicity for his charity work.

And he could hit a baseball better than almost anyone who ever lived.

Ted Williams died on July 5, 2002. His body was cryogenically preserved, a decision made by two of his children that remains controversial among his family. It's a strange coda to a life defined by physical perfection—the greatest hitter who ever lived, frozen in time, waiting for a future he'll never see.

But the numbers don't need cryonics. They live on in every baseball reference, every argument about the greatest hitter, every young player who studies Williams' book "The Science of Hitting" and tries to understand what made him special. The .406 average. The .482 on-base percentage. The five years lost to war and the two batting titles won after age 39.

Those numbers are immortal already.