Ted Williams quest to hit .400 did not become a cliffhanger until the last day of the regular season. On the last day of the year, the Red Sox had a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics. Williams batting average was at .39955 which would of rounded up to .400. The Red Sox's player-manager, Joe Cronin, offered to sit Ted for the games so he would finish the year with a .400 average. Ted declined the offer and said “I’m going to play. If I’m going to be a .400 hitter, I’m not going to slip in through the back door, and I’m not going to do it sitting on the bench.” In the first game Ted went four for five and was easily over .400, but he still refused to sit the second game. In the second game, Ted went two for three to finish the day six for eight. Ted finished with a .406 batting average.
Ted was twenty-three when the season ended and just hitting his prime. Back then it was not looked at as such a monumental achievement as it is now. Ty Cobb and Roger Hornsby had hit .400 three times in their careers. George Sisler had done it twice. Even Joe DiMaggio had come close just two years earlier. (wikinut)
Even though “The Kid,” which was one of his nicknames hit over .400, he finished second in the Most Valuable Player voting to Joe DiMaggio, because of his hit streak, and his large number of runs batted in. The final statistic line for Williams was one hundred eighty-five hits, thirty-seven home runs, one hundred twenty runs batted in, and one hundred forty-seven base on balls, while only striking out a total of twenty-seven times. The season will forever be one of the most historical, but what happened in December of 1941, will always out shadow this incredible baseball season.(Tedwilliams)
On December 7, 1941, the ...
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..., and a .482 on-base percentage, the best of all time. Williams batting average is the highest of any MLB player to hit over five hundred home runs. Ted Williams was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, in his first year of eligibility.
Theodore Samuel Williams died on July 5, 2002 at the age of eighty-three. He died of cardiac arrest in Citrus Memorial Hospital in Inverness, Florida. Ted wanted to be cremated, but Ted's youngest daughter Claudia and his son John Henry decided to have his body frozen cyronically. Ted Williams met his goal and have people calling him the best hitter to ever play.
Works Cited
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/news/tributes/mlb_obit_ted_williams.jsp?content=military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Williams#Death
http://www.boston.com/sports/redsox/williams/stories/easily_he_was_the_brightest_light.shtml
tedwilliams.com
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"Ruth's Record of 700 Home Runs Likely to Stand for All Time in Major Leagues." New York Times 14 July 1934: 8.
and has been in the homerun derby many times. In 2011 he had 23 home runs, 89RBIs
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of a run lower than Chicago’s. Even though the Reds were a great team, they were by no means a
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714 career home runs, had 2,209 career RBI's, and 2,873 total hits, all in only
This record stood until 1961 when Roger Maris hit 61 home runs. He might have been the best baseball player who ever played the game. He led the Yankees to seven World Series and made two million dollars in his career. Jack "the Manassa Mauler" Dempsey was one of the best heavyweight boxers of all time. He was a heavyweight champion and fought and won against Georges Carpentier.
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