Ted Williams' Hit List cont.

“. . . there is an emotional element at work when people defend their favorite players, and God knows those choices are none the less valid for that.
--Ted Williams

Williams says that in his own career he followed the three golden rules of hitting: (i) get a good pitch to hit; (ii) proper thinking at the plate; (iii) be quick with the bat. But in each of his 25 greatest hitters, these rules are refracted through certain character traits that each of them had in various measures and these Williams calls the five ingredients. These are: Intelligence, Courage, Eyesight, Power, and Timing. Williams lists Intelligence first and he seems to give it the greatest emphasis. After all, someone can have the other four in spades, but if he doesn’t know what to do with them, what good is it? He of course is not speaking of general intelligence or IQ scores. We don’t compare Ruth’s and Mays’ SAT results. He means a sort of intelligence for the game, “baseballic” intelligence. A hitter ought to know his situation. He must consider the pitcher, the count, the ballpark, his own strengths and proclivities. He must be constantly able and willing to adjust. A great talent who does not study his game will not progress as well as the intelligent batter, though he be less talented.

But the great hitters were/are also courageous. Courageous? When I think of courage, I think of the movie, “Braveheart”, but again in a baseball-context, courage is not worrying about the pitcher’s intentions but rather remaining almost religiously focused on getting your pitch. “This ain’t going to stop me!” The great hitters are determined to succeed. And if courage and intelligence seem a bit more ephemeral, the other three are quite tangible and easy to understand. Williams says eyesight can be overrated, but no doubt all great hitters must have good eyesight. If a man can’t see, a man can’t hit. Williams believes power and timing, while partially inherent and/or instinctive, can be nurtured and improved through practice of proper technique. No doubt he is correct, and no doubt he is also right to say that timing is everything to a hitter. The difference between a drive down the line for extra bases and a weak ground-out is a fraction of a second.

So taking these into consideration, how did our faithful guide determine the who’s who? (Again, this book was co-authored by Jim Prime, but I don’t know what he contributed. It usually reads in the first-person. I will only cite Williams’ name going forward for ease of discussion.) As the quote at the top suggests, Williams does not simply wish to dryly cull and analyze statistics. He believes part of the beauty of the game is the subjective elements of fan passion, eyewitnesses, ballpark differences, changes in the game, etc. However, it is clear that statistics are a decisive influence in establishing a standard of achievement for players and so he chose what was called Production (PRO.) when he wrote the book, but we now know and love as OPS. (On base Plus Slugging). OPS has become very popular, especially with the stat-nerds and though I am by constitution anti-stat-geek, I appreciate the statistic. It is very plain and easy to calculate and interpret. Williams shows some prescience here I think. The book was written in 1996. If memory serves, OPS had still not caught on mainstream and was simply a plaything of Pete Palmer and Co., through the stupendous Total Baseball. But Williams states that he thinks it is the best stat to use to conveniently evaluate the hitter’s productive contribution to the game. He also is very favorable toward taking home runs, hits, strikeouts, etc. and normalizing them against at-bats, i.e., dividing these by the number of at-bats so we get a per at-bat measure instead of simply a raw number. He prefers this because he says some hitters were clearly superior but for various reasons did not have nearly the at-bats as others. (One of the big culprits for those players in the 40’s and 50’s was War. Williams himself lost over three full seasons of playing due to time served for Uncle Sam.)

By using OPS and per at-bat measures along with his own personal observations and opinions regarding players and ballparks and the game in general, Williams comes to his list of 25. As mentioned, some big names are not there. And some names are sure to surprise. Next post, we’ll begin with number one.