The 1941 baseball season ended on this day, with Boston's Ted Williams closing the season with a .406 batting average. It's the last time that a player batted .400 over a complete season.
A perennial question is which record is more unbreakable: Williams' .406 average or DiMagio's 56 game hitting streak. Both are subject to Umpires expanding or contracting the strike zone; a hitting streak can be kept alive pretty easily via this. Not so much the batting average.
There's an old story about this. A young pitcher was facing Williams. His first pitch was called a ball, even though he thought he had found the strike zone. The second pitch fared no better. Frustrated, the pitcher complained to the Umpire. The Umpire replied, "Son when it's a strike, Mr. Williams will let you know."
All done on old school equipment, balls that don't have a lot of bounce in them, wool uniforms and playing in the hot summer sun, minimalistic cleats if cleats were worn at all, very dated training programs and supposedly poorer nutrition.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that the old records have been broken, it's that it's taken an expanded season, more teams, much better equipment and training, and much better nutrition (legal or otherwise...) to break the pre-Vietnam, really the Korean War or earlier, records.
Beans - Yes. Incremental gains. One wonders how modern players would fair under the same circumstances.
ReplyDeletePart of both Williams and DiMagio's 'ability' was their fantastic vision, MUCH better than 20-20, probably 20-10 or better. I remember an interview Williams did where he said he could 'see' the seams and determined what the pitch was from the spin.
ReplyDeleteHow about a more recent record that won't be broken? Ricky Henderson's stolen base record. 130 bases in 1982. The 2021 stolen base leader has 45.
ReplyDeleteHelp me here. I'm a Brit and I have absolutely no idea what a batting average of 0.406 means. The article shows that this small number is significant, but just what does it mean?
ReplyDeleteElucidation would be much appreciated.
Steve, .406 means that he got a base hit 4 times out of 10. That sounds low but is spectacularly high. A .300 average (3 out of 10) will often lead the team in hitting and .250 (1 out of 4) is average.
ReplyDeleteYo Borepath,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that! Now I understand. Been bothering me for a long time. Cricket scores I know well but baseball, not so much. BTW, do you know where the cricket fielder at the position of 'silly mid-on' stands?
Steve
Steve, I think I used to, 25 years ago when I lived in Blighty. Alas, I've forgotten.
ReplyDelete"Both are subject to Umpires expanding or contracting the strike zone; a hitting streak can be kept alive pretty easily via this."
ReplyDeleteThat right there is a problem. There were problems with the technology this season, but work needs to continue on getting it right and taking balls and strikes away from Blue.
The most egregious example was the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Atlanta strike zone of the 1990s. They rave about Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz, but I tell you whut, Boomhauer, it ain't that hard to be "great" if Blue will give you the strike six inches off the outside corner all the livelong day.
Baseball was not integrated until after WW2. Neither The Splendid Splinter nor the Yankee Clipper faced the likes of Satchel Paige. (No, I’m not black, just keeping it real).
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