Boston Red Sox star Ted Williams was the greatest hitter of his generation.  His career began in 1939 and lasted until 1960.  Twice, however, he stopped playing baseball to fight for his country in a time of war; first World War II, and then in the Korean War.  Williams served as a fighter pilot.  Today, though, we’re going to talk about Williams in the 1941 season.  It was before we entered those wars, but just a short time before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

In the summer of 1941, Ted Williams turned 23 years old.  He was having a terrific season, although his team, Boston, was eventually eliminated from the race for the American League pennant.  Finally, there was one day left in the season for Boston, and they had to play a doubleheader.  By the way, does anyone know what a double header is?  (yes, two games in one day, etc.)

At that point, Ted Williams had 179 hits in 448 at bats. (show the following)

At Bats             Hits

 448                                  179

Can you tell me what his batting average was?

(expect .39955…, then the observation that it’s rounded off to .400)

OK, so that rounds off to .400. BY 1941, only a small number of players in major league history had batted as high as. 400, and no one had done it for years.

So the manager of the Red Sox suggested that Williams might want to take off the last day – skip the doubleheader – and keep his .400 batting average.  Williams refused, and insisted on playing.  Let’s think about some of the possibilities from that day.

Suppose Williams had gone 0 for 1, then hurt himself and had to stop; would he have hit .400?  (no…discuss the math)

Suppose he got a lot of walks -  which don’t count on your battin average – and gone 1 for 3; .44 or not?  (no…do the math)

What if he’d gone 3 for 7 (exactly .400)

As it turned out, Ted Williams had eight times at bat in that final doubleheader.  How many hits would he have needed to still be a .4000 hitter?  (Students should reach the conclusion that three is insufficient – 3 for 8 is .375 and brings him below .3995.  Four hits are needed).

OK, so he would have needed four hits.  Well, actually Williams got an amazing six hits in his eight at bats.  So tell me his final batting average.  (it rounds off to .406)

In the sixty years since then, no player has managed to hit .400 again.  Now let’s get back to our game.  It’s the second inning – Batter Up!