Investor's Business Daily, July 3rd, 2007
Ted Williams knew he had great natural ability. His eyes were so good that he could see the baseball flatten out as it hit his bat.
But for Williams, natural ability wasn't enough.
"Hundreds of kids have the natural ability to become great ballplayers," he told Time magazine. "But nothing except practice, practice, practice will bring out that ability."
So he practiced all the time -- on and off the field.
"The kid swung any object that happened to be around, swung the bedroom pillows in simulation of the swing he would use at the plate," wrote Leigh Montville in "Ted Wil-liams: The Biography of an American Hero." "He swung nothing, just the imaginary bat, if no object could be found. Repetition bought subtle innovation."
For years, people marveled at his "natural swing" -- as "natural" as constant repetition could make it.
All the practice time paid off because Williams became one of the greatest pure hitters in baseball history. He was twice named Most Valuable Player and won the triple crown twice (highest average, most home runs and most runs batted in). He led the American League in batting average six times and played in 18 All-Star games.These feats were all the more remarkable because he was a fighter pilot in World War II (in which he didn't see action) and in the Korean War (during which he was nearly killed) -- when he was in his athletic prime.
Williams (1918-2002) was born and raised in San Diego. He played for the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League during his senior year in high school. Even then as a youngster, he was described by a teammate as an intelligent hitter.
"Most kids swung and survived on reflexes," Montville wrote. "Wil-liams already was using his head."
He constantly asked questions: Why did a pitcher do this? Why did a batter do that? He filed away the answers to be used later.
In his third season as a pro, he was assigned to a Boston Red Sox minor league team, the Minneapolis Millers. Rather than sulk about his junior status, Williams took advantage of the opportunity. The Millers' batting coach was Rogers Hornsby -- a man who batted above .400 three times. "Williams latched onto Hornsby," Montville wrote. "The questions fell out of Williams' mouth in a typical torrent."
Hornsby's answers "put into words a philosophy that the kid had intuitively been following." Its root was simple: Wait for a good pitch.
Williams approached hitting not so much as an art, but as a science. Charlie Wagner, a teammate and roommate, remembered that Wil-liams would get up at 7 a.m. every day -- this being before the advent of night baseball. He turned on the radio and picked up newspapers.
"When he got them, he read every box score of every game in the league," Wagner recalled, "paying particular attention to what the pitchers did. How long they lasted in a game. Whether they were wild or not. Things like that."
His studying didn't end once he finished the newspapers. Williams "wanted to know everything and know it now," Montville wrote. He'd study pitchers and try to understand their tendencies, noticing things most other hitters didn't.
Williams once said to Boston pitcher Elden Auker: "That guy (an opposing pitcher) has started off the last five hitters with fastballs," and asked what that meant.
From the beginning of his career, Williams approached his appearance at the plate with confidence, expecting to hit. His teammate and long-time friend Bobby Doerr supposedly had the following conversation with him during Williams' first season (at a time when rookies were supposed to be seen, but not heard):
Doerr: "Wait'll you see (Jimmie) Foxx hit."
Williams: "Wait'll Foxx sees me hit."
Williams constantly challenged himself, playing against the very best and striving to do better each time against them.
"A funny thing about Ted: He hungered to hit against the pitchers who got him out more than he looked forward to the guys he could hit fairly easily," said Wagner. "Most hitters want that guy they can clobber. He wanted the challenge of getting the guy who had been getting the best of him."
Williams didn't want anything handed to him on a silver platter. Consider the 1941 baseball season, which ranks with baseball enthusiasts as one of the greatest in the history of the game. Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games and Wil-liams hit .406. On the last day of the season he went into the double header batting .39955 -- technically .400. His manager, Joe Cronin, offered to sit him down. Williams supposedly refused, wanting to earn the .400 batting average. He finished the day six-for-eight for a batting average that hasn't been equaled since.
In 1959, Williams had a bad year. At the time, he earned $125,000 -- the highest salary of any ballplayer then. So he showed up at the Red Sox office the following winter and insisted on a $35,000 pay cut. Red Sox management tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted.
He was innovative in his charity work. He personally endorsed all checks of over $1 to the fund. Anyone who wanted Williams' autograph had only to send him a check for Jimmy's Fund, and they were assured of an autograph.
This story originally ran June 2, 2004, on Leaders & Success.
