Ted Williams

Theodore Samuel Williams spent nineteen seasons with the Boston Red Sox and nearly five full years in military service, and he still finished with a .344 lifetime batting average, a .482 on-base percentage, and 521 home runs. If you add back the seasons the wars took from him, the numbers reach a scale that makes the actual record look modest. Williams was the greatest hitter who ever lived, a claim he made about himself as a teenager and spent the rest of his career proving.

San Diego to Fenway

Williams grew up in San Diego, raised largely by relatives while his mother worked long hours for the Salvation Army. He signed with the Red Sox organization in 1938 and reached the majors in 1939, hitting .327 with 31 home runs as a 20-year-old rookie. He was confident to the point of arrogance, telling veteran teammates he intended to become the greatest hitter of all time. They were annoyed. He was correct.

In 1941, Williams entered the final day of the season hitting .39955, which would have rounded up to .400. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered to let him sit out the doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics to preserve the mark. Williams refused. He went 6-for-8 and finished at .406. No one has hit .400 since.

The Wars

Williams was a Marine Corps aviator in World War II and again in the Korean War, serving as a fighter pilot in both conflicts. He lost the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons to WWII, and most of 1952 and 1953 to Korea. In Korea, he flew 39 combat missions, survived a crash landing after his F9 Panther was hit by ground fire, and returned to the Red Sox lineup in August 1953. He hit .407 in 37 games the rest of that season.

The lost seasons cost Williams roughly 2,500 plate appearances. Projections based on his surrounding seasons suggest he would have finished with approximately 680 home runs and well over 2,500 RBI. The projections are educated guesses, but the underlying point is simple. Two wars cost Williams a significant portion of his statistical legacy, and even the diminished version was extraordinary.

The Science of Hitting

Williams approached hitting with the analytical obsession of a research scientist. He studied pitchers' patterns, catalogued the strike zone into 77 cells, and calculated his expected batting average for pitches in each cell. His book, "The Science of Hitting," published in 1971, remains one of the most influential texts on the mechanics and strategy of batting. Modern analytics validated what Williams figured out by observation decades earlier.

He won six batting titles, two Triple Crowns (1942 and 1947), and two MVP awards (1946 and 1949). He was robbed of at least two more MVPs by sportswriters who disliked his combative personality. In 1941, the year he hit .406, Joe DiMaggio won the award. In 1947, his second Triple Crown year, Joe DiMaggio won again despite inferior numbers. Williams feuded with the Boston press throughout his career, and the press voted on the MVP.

The Last At-Bat

On September 28, 1960, in his final career plate appearance at Fenway Park, Williams hit a home run to right-center field off Jack Fisher of the Baltimore Orioles. John Updike, who was in the stands, wrote about it in "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," one of the finest pieces of American sports writing. Williams circled the bases and went directly to the dugout, refusing to tip his cap despite a standing ovation. He never tipped his cap at Fenway. That was the bargain he had struck with the city. Total honesty, zero sentimentality.

Williams was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966 and used his acceptance speech to advocate for the induction of Negro League players, a cause that was ahead of its time and helped lead to the Special Committee on Negro Leagues that began admitting players in 1971. He died on July 5, 2002, in Inverness, Florida, at age 83. The debate about what he would have done without the wars will never be settled, which is part of the point. The wars happened. He went anyway.