Or write about sports? iUniverse Publishing. He saw 17 seasons in which he hit for over .300 which ranks third-most in the modern era only behind Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker. The Splendid Splinter posted the highest single-season batting average in the modern era by a player 38 years of age or older -- 10 points higher than 38-year old Ty Cobb's .378 in 1925. Rookie Status: Because of his ability to hit for both average and power, he was one of a kind and a truly special player. Foxx, 5. He also won the NL batting title with a .372 average in 1997. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of the culmination of Joe DiMaggio's record 56-game hitting streak, as the Yankees star went 0-for-3 against Cleveland pitchers Al Smith and Jim Bagby on July 17, 1941.But while Joltin' Joe's record run captured the imagination of the American public, his friendly rival, Ted Williams, may have set an even more untouchable mark when he finished that 1941 season with a .406 average.Consider this: While DiMaggio batted .409 during his streak, Williams actually bested him with a .412 average during that same span. Brett finished his career with more than 3,000 hits, 650 doubles, 130 triples, 300 home runs, and 200 stolen bases, to go alone with an elite .305/.369/.487/.857 slash line. But Williams was locked in, leading off the second inning with a single to pull his average back up to .405. Babe Ruth, 2. Allan Simpson. Williams was right to be worried. Gwynn spent his entire career with the San Diego Padres and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007. By the time Ted Williams retired he had a .344 batting average, 521 home runs, and a 0.482 on-base percentage, the highest of all time. He then returned to Pensacola where he served as an instructor with the United States Marine Corps Reserve at Bronson Field. Walker finished his career with 383 career home runs, a .313/.400/.565/.965 slash line, and 230 stolen bases for good measure. six batting titles and finished with a batting average more than 100 points higher than league average during those six years. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. He also had an incredible 2,654 hits, which ranks him 11th on the all-time list. He was the last player to hit .400 in Major . A good batting average is anything around the .300 range or even high-200s. 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)? (Voted by BBWAA on 282/302 ballots) 5.0. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. Comparing batting averages Three landmarks of baseball achievement are Ty Cobb's batting average of 420 in 1911, Ted Williams's 406 in 1941, and George Brett's 390 in 1980. Ted Williams averaged 300 hits while winning two Triple Crowns, the most of any Hall of Fame player. 3 - Ted Williams surrendered three hits during his two innings of work when he took the mound on August 24, 1940. Ted Williams hit .406 with the Boston Red Sox in 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. Williams got one more at-bat, leading off the seventh with the As now leading 6-0. The highest batting average ever recorded was by Ted Williams in 1941 when he hit .406. Williams led off, hitting a grounder to second that was booted by Crash Davis for an error. Reasonable shipping cost. Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. Tris Speaker). I had to maintain my focus throughout. One of the most impressive batting averages of all time belongs to Ted Williams. Ted's batting average was .3996 rounded off by numbers-trackers to .400. Musical hit .376 in 1948 but his success hitting went beyond that. Cap Anson, 6. First, lets back it up to the start of the season-ending three-game series in Philadelphia. At season's end, Walker stood nine hits shy of history.Last day at .400: May 26How short was he? When the pair returned to the team hotel, Cronin and a coach were sitting in the lobby. Given the fact that we are just weeks away from the close of the season, we can makea safe assumption that Williams ongoing streak will remain intact. Williams was a great hitter who could hit for both average and power while also drawing walks, making him one of the most feared hitters the game has ever seen. When they shifted on him, everybody to the right side, he still kept trying to pull the ball for hits. Brett saw an impressive .390 batting average in 1980 which marks the latest a player has qualified for .400 since 1941. 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. MVP in 1946 and 1949. Three landmarks of baseball achievement are Ty Cobb's batting average of 0.420 in 1911. During the whole conversation all he kept repeating, over and over, was how determined he was to hit .400.. 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. 1940 1942, 1946 1951, 1953-1960 Boston Red Sox AL. Instead, the Splendid Splinter played both games, went . He had a career batting average of .344, which is the sixth highest in Major League Baseball history. And yet, despite all those league-leading numbers Williams finished second to DiMaggio for the AL MVP, likely because the Yankees won the pennant by 17 games over the Red Sox and DiMaggio stole the summer with his 56-game hitting streak. Let's break down the highest batting averages in a MLB season of all-time. Lou Gehrig, 3. The day Ted Williams put his .400 season on the line. Ted Williams: L.349/.488/.663 . Williams was the last hitter to hit at least .400 after finishing with a batting average of .406 in 1941. Throughout his entire career, Williams batting average never dropped below .300. Three innings later, Williams started the fifth with his 37th home run; he was now batting .402. During his 24-year career, he compiled a .366 batting average, which is the highest in Major League Baseball history. Only Robinson Cano and Trea Turner represent the other two of five active players with a career batting average above .300. Babe Ruth, 48 years old, pinch-hit in the 7th inning and flied out to right, but the all-stars won 9-8 on a Ted Williams home run. Ted Williams was batting at .39955 going into the final day, a double-header, of the 1941 season. he also finished with two of the most amazing . 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). The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. (Age 42-029d) Regardless of your Barry Bonds opinion, the man hit for .370 in 2002 and also won the batting title in 2004 batting .362. Stan Musial, one of the finest players in the majors during the late 1940s and in history, ended his holdout 75 years ago Saturday. (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.). But getting to know him a little later, the quote would be full . Did you know that Carney Lansford and Will Clark each lost the batting championship on the last day of the season in 1989, the first time the batting title was decided in both leagues on the last day? Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. So he was worried about this.. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. As mentioned above, Carew hit for .388 in 1977 and actually led the league in hitting on six different occasions. His season . All Rights Reserved by Baseball Almanac, Inc.Hosted by Hosting 4 Less. Top 10 HIghest Batting Averages Since 1941. Ted Williams was born on Friday, August 30, 1918, in San Diego, California. Ted Williams played for 1 team, the Boston Red Sox. Because of his keen eye and incredible hand-eye coordination, as well as his willingness to pay attention to the game and his opponents, he was one of the best feared hitters in Major League Baseball. Page 128. . .406 Batting Average (1941) | .388 Batting Average (1957) It was during this discussion that I asked him, How do you want to handle it? Cronin said. To put it in perspective, Cobb hit .366 and it is the best of all-time. "If I had known hitting .400 was going to be such a big deal, I would have done it again.". Use the batting championship data above to find the first from every team, the first to win back-to-back titles, the first to win in each league, the first to win with an average less than .350, and hundreds of other variations Honus Wagner (8 batting titles), Tony Gwynn (8 batting titles) and Ty Cobb (12 batting titles) are truly in a class by themselves. Never much of a power hitter, Carew was still one of the most lethal offensive weapons in all of baseball through the late 1960s, all of the 70s, and into the early- and mid-80s. Did you know that when George Brett went 1-for-1 at the plate on October 3, 1990, he raised his average to .329, won the batting championship, and became the first player in baseball history to win a batting title in three different decades? 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. We walked for over three hours, and my feet were burning. Average for the last 12 months. var pfHeaderImgUrl = '';var pfHeaderTagline = '';var pfdisableClickToDel = 0;var pfHideImages = 0;var pfImageDisplayStyle = 'right';var pfDisablePDF = 0;var pfDisableEmail = 0;var pfDisablePrint = 0;var pfCustomCSS = 'https://www.baseball-almanac.com/css/print.css';var pfBtVersion='2';(function(){var js,pf;pf=document.createElement('script');pf.type='text/javascript';pf.src='//cdn.printfriendly.com/printfriendly.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(pf)})(); Did you know that Ted Williams and Andre Dawson are the only two Major League ballplayers to have hit a home run off a father/son pitching duo? Ted Williams was known by the nicknames "Teddy Ballgame . 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. With more players looking to hit home runs, the more strikeouts occur which is good for pitching. 8,629th in major league history) Ted Williams approached batting in a methodical way, he worked out his optimal strike zone where the odds were in his favour and he maintained the discipline to only swing if the ball was in that zone. Ted Williams had done it. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. In 1941, he also had the most hits in a single season with 230 and the most home runs with 37. despite complaining that the shift cost him 20 to 30 points on his lifetime batting average of . Ted Williams, 1957: .388A full 16 years later, Williams proved he had plenty of magic left in his bat in 1957. Hits 2,654 Career | Total Bases 6X (25th All-Time) | RBIs 4X (15th All-Time) Thats a debate for another day (or article). In his first career season with the Boston Red Sox, his batting average was .329. 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. 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. On September 28, 1941, Boston Red Socks first baseman Ted Williams had six hits in eight at-bats, raising his average to. Joe Posnaski in 2009 listed DiMaggio as the 11th best hitter . During his time in the Major Leagues, Ted Williams hit an impressive 521 home runs and had a career batting average of .344. Todd Helton, 2000 .372One year after Walker ignited the Rocky Mountains with his .400 chase, teammate Helton gave it a try. update=copyright.getFullYear(); Did you know that prior to Ted Williams, the only inductees who received more votes were 5. Williams flew 39 combat missions before being pulled from flight status in June of 1953 after an old ear infection acted up. The last player to hit just .400 in the majors was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, who hit .406 in 1941 before taking the next three seasons off . Baseball has seen some great players over the years, as they have come and gone. The Splendid Splinter led the league in walks eight times. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Williams was 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 20, 1939, with the Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams served as a Naval Aviator during World War II and the Korean War. I have my mother to support. document.write(update); Three Landmarks of baseball achievement are Ty Cobb's batting average of .420 in 1911, Ted Williams's .406 in 1941, and George Brett's .390 in 1980. Ted flew as my wingman on about half the missions he flew in Korea.". The two faced off again in the seventh. 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). Despite his.170 batting average, Bill Bergen is regarded as one of the all-time great players. Ted Williams once said it was his goal in life to "walk down . 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. 5.0. . Hank Aaron, 4. In the first game at Philadelphias Shibe Park on Sept. 27, 1941, right-handed knuckleballer Roger Wolff, 30 years old and playing in just his second Major League game, held him to one hit in four at-bats, dropping his average further to .39955, rounded up to .400 in some observers eyes (and the official record books). Ted Williams career batting statistics for Major League, Minor League, and postseason baseball . April 20, 1939 Where what happened yesterday is being preserved today. Ted Williams had a .344 average over his career. 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 Quotes], Ted 'The Splendid Splinter' Williams Autograph on a 1976 Topps Sporting News All-Time All-Stars Baseball Card (#347 | Checklist), Ted Williams Miscellaneous Items of Interest. 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. 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). Shoeless Joe Jackson, 4. Posting at least a .400 batting average across a full Major League Baseball season remains one of the most difficult tasks in the game. copyright=new Date(); 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. Ted Williams Batting Average. In the All-Star Game in Detroit that year, Williams hit a game-winning home run. . 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? He saw it the same way. Babe Ruth? These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. In the sixth, Mack went to his bullpen, calling on 22-year-old left-hander Porter Vaughn. 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. Ted Williams once commented about those that fail 'only' seven times out of ten attempts will be the greatest in the game. The best Murphy has ever hit over a full second half of a season was .307 in 2013. Back with the Red Sox in 1946, Williams hit the first spring training pitch he saw for a home run on February 26 and then led the team to the World Series. (Sunday was also scheduled to be Lefty Grove Day as Philadelphia feted the 41-year-old Red Sox hurler who had spent his first nine seasons with the Athletics. From June to August 1945, Williams went through the Corsair Operational Training Unit at Jacksonville. Ted Williams Armed Forces Identification Card | Library of Congress Collection. The ride out was quiet, Wagner said. Did you know that those who finished ahead of The Thumper were 7. And because of Macks schedule adjustment, Williams didnt have just one off-day to think about how he close he was to dropping below .400, he now had two. Williams returned to the United States in December and was discharged from the Marines on January 28, 1946. The charismatic outfielder by the way, had a 14-start hitting streak (he went 0-for-1 in a substitution appearance on August 4) at the time of the strike, so he was certainly showing signs of pushing the legendary figure. Bob Feller (93.8% in 1962), 4. 6' 3" / 205. Highest Batting Average in a Season. "We were in the same squadron there. Aside from winning two Triple Crowns and being a two-time Most Valuable Player, Williams was also a 17-time All-Star. * 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. We have been getting good hitting and pitching, and both the cadets and officers on the team love to play baseball.". Cobb, 2. His career batting average of .344 is a testament to his greatness as a hitter. Credit: AP. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Ted Williams played 19 seasons for the Red Sox. The strike halted play in mid-August, denying Gwynn the opportunity to try and keep the four-plus months hot streak going. And 10 miles (at least according to Williams autobiography, My Turn At Bat). View Ted Williams's Page at the Baseball Hall of Fame (plaque, photos, videos). But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Join Baseball Almanac as we take a look at some additional numbers of interest as they relate to Ted Williams, easily (one of) "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived": 1 - Ted Williams has the highest on base percentage ever put together by any Major League ballplayer in history! Williams was first sent, with teammate John Pesky, to the Navy's Preliminary Ground School at Amherst College in Massachusetts, for six months. ), Latest-in-season .400 bids since Ted Williams. Stan Musial, 1948: .376Vin Scully once said that Musial was "good enough to take your breath away," and in 1948 he reached perhaps his most dizzying heights. Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREEYour All-Access Ticket to the Baseball Reference Database. Ted Williams hits .406 in 1941 .