I had to maintain my focus throughout. During his 24-year career, he compiled a .366 batting average, which is the highest in Major League Baseball history. In 1936 the 18-year-old posted an impressive .271 batting average on 107 at bats in 42 games for the Padres. he also finished with two of the most amazing . Did you know that when Willie McGee won his 1990 batting title, he started the season in the National League, was traded to an American League team on August 29th, and became the first player in baseball history to win a batting a title in a league that they were not currently playing in? When Ted Williams hung-up his playing cleats in 1960, he ranked third all-time in home runs (1. But not others. Nomar Garciaparra, 2000: .372Four players posted a .372 average in their chase of Williams from 1997-2004, one of the best offensive eras in baseball history. The major league minimum is $720,000. The night before the final game of the season I walked the streets of Philly with Ted, said Orlando, who was just a few years older than Williams. Create your own MLB fantasy pools & contests with RYP! Did you know Ted Williams was there at the helm, due to their relocation from D.C. to Arlington, for the last Washington Senators game (September 30, 1971), AND the first Texas Rangers game (April 15, 1972)? the fifth start of his career. Again, yes. 3 - Ted Williams surrendered three hits during his two innings of work when he took the mound on August 24, 1940. Despite his.170 batting average, Bill Bergen is regarded as one of the all-time great players. Ted Williams Batting Average. Tris Speaker). The Boston left fielder entered the last game of the season that year with a .3995 batting average. All Rights Reserved by Baseball Almanac, Inc.Hosted by Hosting 4 Less. 14 hits shy of .400.T6. Find out more. One of these accomplishments is Ted William's hitting over .400 on the season. . Lou Gehrig, 3. "By luck of the draw, we went to Korea at the same time," said future astronaut, John Glenn. Average for the last 12 months. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Williams spent his entire career with the Boston Red Sox and finished with a .344 career batting average, 2,654 hits, 521 home runs, and 1,839 runs batted in. MVP Season 150 Runs, 43 HRs, 159 RBIs, 162 BBs, 368 TBs, .343 BA (1949), Official Site for "The Splendid Splinter", MLB Hall Of Famer Ted Williams #9. "It was something that required a kind of nonstop consistency," Williams said of his .406 season in 1991. To put it politely, the team didn't have talent like Ted Williams or Jackie Jensen blocking Pearson's path in the outfield. As mentioned above, Carew hit for .388 in 1977 and actually led the league in hitting on six different occasions. document.write(update); He played baseball for the base team, the Bronson Bombers, which won the Training Command championship that year. 1941 is a very important year for baseball fans. . Carew began his career as an All-Star in 1967 and never looked back, making 18 straight teams until his final season in 1985. ), Latest-in-season .400 bids since Ted Williams. His career was marked by numerous records and accomplishments, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest hitters of all time. He was a master of the art of hitting, combining great hand-eye coordination and power with a keen knowledge of the strike zone. With new kids he never had faced or seen before, he lost his edge. Only Robinson Cano and Trea Turner represent the other two of five active players with a career batting average above .300. Bill Bergen, who played from 1901 to 1911, holds the record for the lowest career batting average for a player with more than 2,500 at-bats. As well, he was the youngest player in the history of the game to achieve 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 hits. The Panama native racked up nearly three times as many career hits as strikeouts (3,053 vs. 1,028) and his 1,018 walks nearly equal the strikeout total. Throughout his entire career, Williams batting average never dropped below .300. The runner-up in our five-part series documenting the best years of Boston Red Sox star Ted Williams brings us to his 1941 season. Between games, the 41-year-old Grove was honored before taking the mound to start the nightcap. Ted Williams Rookie Card | 1939 Play Ball Baseball Card (#92 | Checklist)Baseball Almanac Research Library. Williams had one more at-bat coming, in the ninth. Mr. Padre saw a batting average of .394 in 1994, actually slumping to end the season as he was above .400 before dropping right below it. 8 - Ted Williams was ranked eighth by The Sporting News when they released their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players in the history of baseball. The now-70 year-old posted career-highs in pretty much every offensive category and led the league too, in runs scored (128), hits (239), triples (16), batting average (.388), on-base percentage (.449), and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.019). The dedication Williams showed to being the best hitter he could be on the field was responsible for his success on the field, but it will almost certainly never be duplicated. 454/.655 compared to a .312/.432/.496 line for Williams. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Williams was batting cleanup, his customary spot in the lineup during the second half of that season (after generally batting third before the All-Star Game). It does not store any personal data. He batted .316 as a 42-year-old in 1960 and his lifetime average of .344 is only topped by Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Tris Speak. Plenty of headlines the next day looked beyond the third decimal: Sox Top As; Williams Falls to .399Teds Average to .39955; Last Try at .400 TodayWilliams Batting Average Now .39955; Chips Down TodayTed Williams Slumps Below .400 With Two Games LeftWilliams Average Drops Below .400Ted Williams Slips Below .400 MarkRookie Drops Ted Williams To .399 MarkTed Williams Batting .399. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. "Giant centerfield Willie Mays compared (Ted) Williams and ( Stan) Musial to sportswriter Roger Kahn. Aside from winning two Triple Crowns and being a two-time Most Valuable Player, Williams was also a 17-time All-Star. Its mind-boggling that Walker finished only 10th in the 1999 NL MVP vote, as he was an All-Star, Gold Glove winner, and Silver Slugger, all while leading the league in batting average (.379), on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.710), and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.168). Its unfortunate, but batting averages continue to decline in baseball with much emphasis put on home runs. Wins Above Replacement 6X (14th All-Time) | On Base Plus Slugging 10X (2nd All-Time) Statistics courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference, and Baseball-Almanac. Do you have a sports website? Ted Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, and there is no way to argue with that. (Fun fact: A year earlier, John Olerud was still hitting .400 as of August 2, but he slumped down the stretch and finished with a .363 mark in 1993.). He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 to 1960; his career . Shoeless Joe Jackson, 4. Williams.553 on-base percentage in 1941 was also a Major League record that stood for 61 years until Barry Bonds topped it in 2002 (.582), then again in 2004 (.609). 2. 9 who have come closest to reaching the hallowed mark. Ted went 4-for-5 in the first game [box], bringing his batting average to .404, then went 2-for-3 in the second game [box], ending the season with a .406 batting average, making him the last player to bat over .400 in a season. He retired in 1960 with 521 home runs, 1,839 RBIs, and a .344 batting average highlighted by a .406 performance in 1941, his third year in the majors. Seven hits shy of .400.T3. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. This article (among others) that . In the All-Star Game in Detroit that year, Williams hit a game-winning home run. That year, the mean and the standard deviation for batting averages were 0.28062 and 0.03281. . Did you know that Ted Williams was actually hitting .401 the day before [box], Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered him to sit out of the game, Williams refused, went 1-for-4, and had his batting average (before the double header) drop to .3995? The 1994 strike interrupted Tony Gwynn's bid to become first player to bat .400 since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941 . . Walter Johnson, 3. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. April 20, 1939 For three hours. During his time in the Major Leagues, Ted Williams hit an impressive 521 home runs and had a career batting average of .344. I am going to play ball this season, he announced. Top 10 HIghest Batting Averages Since 1941. As the story goes, Ted Williams entered the final day of the 1941 season with a .400 batting average and a chance to sit out Boston's scheduled doubleheader against the A's, a move that would clinch the first .400 season in 11 years. On a given day, a player would hit three of every ten at bats if they hit 300 with a 300 average. He also won the NL batting title with a .372 average in 1997. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Walker finished his career with 383 career home runs, a .313/.400/.565/.965 slash line, and 230 stolen bases for good measure. Ruth, 2. The camp was capped off by being presented with the Coaches Award for spirit and . "Ted Williams is in a class by himself this season," said DiMaggio, quoted in . Musical hit .376 in 1948 but his success hitting went beyond that. Cap Anson, 6. Teddy Ballgame joined the club first when he went deep off Thornton Lee on September 17, 1939 then his son Don Lee on September 2, 1960. Williams also had a batting average of .388 in 1942, .356 in 1947, .328 in 1948, .345 in 1949, and .317 in 1960. Ted Williams had a .344 average over his career. Williams then attended gunnery training at Jacksonville where he once again set gunnery records. Ironically, along with Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak that has stood the test of time since 1941, Boston Red Sox icon Ted Williams' .406 average put up that very same year is unsurpassed. in San Diego, CA Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 - July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. . I have as much right to be exempted as anyone else. One of the most prolific hitters in the history of Major League Baseball, Ted Williams was a true master of the sport. But with a full season at his disposal this time, Gwynn tailed off down the stretch, batting .328 over the final two months of the season.Last day at .400: July 14How short was he? Williams did enjoy his .406 season, right down to the final hit on Sept. 28, 1941 a rocket that crashed into a bulky loudspeaker atop a fence in right-center field. August 30, 1918 Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. Hank Aaron, 4. Ted wanted to play in the worst way.. He later said it was the hardest he had hit a ball to that point in his career. six batting titles and finished with a batting average more than 100 points higher than league average during those six years. Copyright 1999- It's still only April, but Colorado Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday is on pace to tie the highest season batting average since Hall of Famer Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, becoming the last big leaguer to top the magic .400 barrier. Ted Williams at bat. Three innings later, Williams started the fifth with his 37th home run; he was now batting .402. Todd Helton, 2000 .372One year after Walker ignited the Rocky Mountains with his .400 chase, teammate Helton gave it a try. In 1941, he had the highest batting average of his career when he hit for .406. Not saying LH Joe DiMaggio would do better, no way to tell. Much of the play-by-play, game results, and transaction information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. Beerball: A History of St. Louis Baseball. One of our favorite websites, Baseball in Wartime, has put together the best biographies on every player who served. Williams joined them and they talked until midnight. Teddy Ballgame led the team to a winning season (86-76) that year, but then had four losing seasons, finishing out his contract with 273 wins, 364 losses, and a .429 winning percentage. He also hit for .388 in 1957, which Rod Carew tied in 1977. by Retrosheet. It is appropriate to place Williams among the greatest hitters of all time, as his career numbers demonstrate his greatness. He was right about that and the list of batting champions below, reflects those great hitters who truly dominated during a single season of play. His career batting average of .344 is a testament to his greatness as a hitter. As a member of the American League, these achievements have been achieved. Williams was 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 20, 1939, with the Boston Red Sox. Pujols and Cabrera are the only players with five-digit career plate appearances. It is no surprise, then, that Williams lifetime batting average remains one of the most impressive accomplishments in the history of baseball. On September 28, 1960, exactly 19 years after he went 6-for-8 to hit .406, Ted Williams played his last Major League game for the only MLB team he had ever played for. Instead, the Splendid Splinter played both games, went . from the SABR BioProject, More Ted Williams Pages at Baseball Reference. He hit 3,000 hits in his 2,135th game at the age of 34 years and 243 days, making him the youngest player in history to achieve the mark. He flied out to left to finish 2-for-3, his average settling at .406 or .405701, rounded up. In the sixth, Mack went to his bullpen, calling on 22-year-old left-hander Porter Vaughn. Ted Williams' 0.406 in 1941, and George Brett's 0.390 in 1980. That the Red Sox lost, 7-1, in a game called after eight innings because of darkness was secondary. 20 hits shy of .400.It's been 16 years since we've even seen a hitter sit above .380 at the All-Star break, signifying that the chances of seeing anyone break the .400 barrier in a season may be getting slimmer and slimmer. Gwynn spent his entire career with the San Diego Padres and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007. 93.4 - Ted Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, his first year of eligibility, receiving votes from 93.4% of the writers. Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball, Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. "My conscience is clear. This was his fourth appearance, and the first against Boston. "If I had known hitting .400 was going to be such a big deal, I would have done it again.". * Ted Williams himself lists Joe D in his book as the 5th greatest hitter ever, and he would be 6th with Williams included on his own list. And 10 miles (at least according to Williams autobiography, My Turn At Bat). (Age 20-233d, Did you know that in both of those historic seasons, The Kid did not win the Most Valuable Player Award (losing to Joe Gordon in '42 and Joe DiMaggio in '47)? . Ted Williams was batting at .39955 going into the final day, a double-header, of the 1941 season. Ted Williams was known by the nicknames "Teddy Ballgame . In 1941, only his third season in the majors, Williams captivated the nation by chasing a .400 season batting average. When the season is over, I'll get into the Navy as fast as I can.". In baseball, batting average (AVG) is a measure of a batter's success rate in achieving a hit during an at bat, and is calculated by dividing a player's hits by his at bats. Its no surprise then, that Brett was able to get so close to reaching .400 back in 1980, when he finished with a .390 mark. He'd gone 2-for-5 with a run scored in a rout of the Chicago White Sox, but all that did was improve his batting average . Bud still does presentations for groups about Ted Williams but said this year was his final fantasy camp. "If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400." . Where what happened yesterday is being preserved today. The two faced off again in the seventh. View Ted Williams's Page at the Baseball Hall of Fame (plaque, photos, videos). Rod Carew, 1977: .388Carew and Williams each batted .388 exactly two decades apart, but we'll start with Carew, who maintained a .400-plus average into July en route to his sixth career batting title. Ted Williams Boston Red Sox MLB . the official stats partner of the NBA, NHL and MLB. Brett saw an impressive .390 batting average in 1980 which marks the latest a player has qualified for .400 since 1941. 93.4 - Ted Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, his first year of eligibility, receiving votes from 93.4% of the writers. Ted Williams had 2,654 hits over his career. He played his entire 19-year career with the Boston Red Sox and is often referred to as the greatest hitter who ever lived. Williams received his pilot's wings and commission as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on May 2, 1944. Statistics and Probability questions and answers. Average hits per week: 6.7 Extra hits needed per week: 0.2 T3. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. Because of his ability to hit for both average and power, he was one of a kind and a truly special player. 394 batting average in 1994 is the closest anyone has come to hitting .400 . The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". But while he won the American League batting title by a whopping 47 points that year, his efforts fell short in the league's Most Valuable Player Award voting. His season . Did you know that during the opening ceremonies he invited one active player to be attendance and it was Tony Gwynn? 6 - Ted Williams collected six hits across two games of a doubleheader played on September 28, 1941, the last two games of the season. The 38 year old Williams fell just 5 hits short of the elusive .400 mark in 1957. 1941-05-25 Ted Williams raises his batting average over .400 for 1st time in 1941. His .338 career batting average is the highest batting average since Ted Williams, and it is a testament to his skill and dedication as a hitter. But Williams was locked in, leading off the second inning with a single to pull his average back up to .405. He was an eight-time National League batting champion, and he won five Gold Glove Awards for his outstanding defense. 1942-06-02 Red Sox star Ted Williams enlists as a US Navy aviator. Ted Williams, in full Theodore Samuel Williams, bynames the Splendid Splinter and Teddy Ballgame, (born August 30, 1918, San Diego, California, U.S.died July 5, 2002, Inverness, Florida), American professional baseball player who compiled a lifetime batting average of .344 as an outfielder with the American League Boston Red Sox from 1939 to 1960. These batting averages cannot be compared directly because the distribution of major league batting averages has changed over the years. But its not quite so simple as a choice between Sit or Play. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Cobb finished his career with a .366 batting average which is best of all-time. Five hits shy of .400.T3. If you're wondering, Ted Williams is the last player to hit over .400, doing so in 1941 with a .406 batting average. At season's end, Walker stood nine hits shy of history.Last day at .400: May 26How short was he? Williams' response was not captured for posterity. Hits 2,654 Career | Total Bases 6X (25th All-Time) | RBIs 4X (15th All-Time) Since Ted Williams achieved a lifetime batting average of .344, the highest batting average since his time has been held by Tony Gwynn with a career batting average of .338. What they did at that time, they teamed up a reservist with a regular to fly together most of the time just because the regular Marine pilots normally had more instrument flying experience and things like that. In the last three-quarters of a century, no player has had the same kind of consistency needed reach just the .400 plateau, let alone tie Williams' .406.To put it in contemporary terms, think of it this way: If Daniel Murphy, the Majors' current batting average leader at .348, were to finish with 584 at-bats this season (his average over the last three years), he would have to hit roughly .472 (117-for-248) the rest of the way to join Williams in the .400 club. We have been getting good hitting and pitching, and both the cadets and officers on the team love to play baseball.". Williams flew 39 combat missions before being pulled from flight status in June of 1953 after an old ear infection acted up. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Except for a stretch from July 11-24, when his batting average dipped as low as .393, he'd been hitting above .400 since May 25. The highest batting average ever recorded was by Ted Williams in 1941 when he hit .406. Stan Musial, one of the finest players in the majors during the late 1940s and in history, ended his holdout 75 years ago Saturday. He Mysteriously Retired in 1955. Though Gwynn would not see his average rise above .400 after May 15, he would also not see it dip below .376 after April, suggesting that he was consistent enough to stay in the chase until the very end. There is one major qualification to Walker's 1999 season, which is that his average in the thin home air at Coors Field (.461) was a full 175 points higher than his clip on the road (.286). This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. I have my mother to support. Did you know that Tony Cuccinello (.30845) lost the batting championship in 1945, to Snuffy Stirnweiss (.30854), by .00009 - the closest finish in baseball history? In the fourth, with the Sox now down 4-0, Williams smoked a double that slammed into the right-field wall, leaving a hole in a speaker mounted there. Along with John Olerud in 1993, Brett remains just one of two players on the list that played in over 100 games when batting for the record. Here in 2016, Washington Nationals second baseman Daniel Murphy enters play on Thursday with a .394 mark to lead the league, with no other guy within 40 points of the locked-in hitter. Ted Williams played 19 seasons for the Red Sox. All Rights Reserved by Baseball Almanac, Inc.Hosted by Hosting 4 Less. Williams was right to be worried. Here then, are the four batters since No. His lowest batting average in a year that he won a batting title was .336 or .337. He also hit for .388 in 1957, which Rod Carew tied in 1977. Interestingly enough, although it has been three-quarters of a century since anybody has hit .400 or better, the top four outputs all happened within a 22-year span, with Carew being the oldest. With the season complete, Williams led the Majors in batting average, on-base percentage (.553), slugging (.735), OPS (1.287), runs (135), home runs (37) and walks (147). In 1958, the year Kubek played with him in the All-Star game, he won his sixth American League batting championship. Williams, the only Major League Baseball player to hit over.400 in 1941, had an incredible year that year, batting.406. Most baseball fans know that Ted's last season was 1960 when he famously hit a home run in the last at bat of his legendary career. Walks 8X (4th All-Time) | Runs Created 9X (6th All-Time) The Hawk became the second member when he went deep off Pedro Borbon on June 10, 1977 then off his son Pedro Borbon (Jr.) on August 16, 1995. Credit: AP. The aging Red Sox star saw his average fall below .400 for the final time on June 6, and his .295 average in June remarkably was his lowest of any month that season. In 1941, he had the highest batting average of his career when he hit for .406. Ted Williams hits .406 in 1941 . The next morning, Sept. 28, Williams and roommate Charlie Wagner, a 28-year-old pitcher, took a cab to the ballpark. On September 28, 1960, at Boston's Fenway Park, Red Sox star Ted Williams hits a home run in the last at-bat of his 21-year career. .406 Batting Average (1941) | .388 Batting Average (1957) . Has there ever been a player that was a "Top Prospect" longer than Royce Lewis? hitting catcher has a better batting average and on-base percentage against . The Red Sox were coming off a three-game series in Washington where Williams went 2-for-10, dropping his average from .406 to .401. Ted's batting average was .3996 rounded off by numbers-trackers to .400. Last day at .400: July 11How short was he? A career.344 batting average ranks second to Ty Cobb, and he won six American League titles in the league. Ted Williams is widely recognized as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. 20 straight years he had an OBP of .350 or higher. Ted Williams lost 6 years to military service in the prime of his career. Copyright 2023 Endgame360 Inc. All Rights Reserved. He won 2 MVP awards. Ted Williams is the best pure hitter I ever saw. But after a red-hot summer, Brett woke up on the morning of Sept. 20 with an even .400 average -- the latest date that anyone on this list was at or above the magical mark. The ride out was quiet, Wagner said. Ted flew as my wingman on about half the missions he flew in Korea.". 1941-09-28 Ted Williams ended the baseball season with .406 batting avg. In his best year with . Accurate description. inInverness,FL, High School: Herbert Hoover HS (San Diego, CA), Debut: document.write(update); Born: Four of the top five players are also right-handed hitters, with Cano being the lefty of the bunch. His plaque reads, "A .344 career hitter with 521 home runs and 1,839 RBI in 19 seasons with the Red Sox, Ted Williams was voted A.L. Ted Williams, 1957: .388 At the age of 38, Williams found out first-hand how hard it is to record a .400 average. Data Provided By Say what you want about Walker playing in the steroid era and playing the majority of his games in notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field, but the Canadian could straight up rake (and run). His accomplishments are impressive, so its difficult to imagine anyone else succeeding in the same way. His career on-base percentage of .482 is still the highest of all time, and his slugging percentage of .634 is the fourth highest of all time. Ted Williams. .406 Batting Average (1941) | .388 Batting Average (1957) Rather than ruminate in his hotel room that night, Williams and Red Sox equipment manager Johnny Orlando who had bestowed The Kid nickname on Williams when he arrived at his first Spring Training went out for a walk. Visit their online baseball cards to learn much more, or the Batting Average Record Book to see details. His .408 batting average in 1911 will likely stand forever as the rookie record.