I stumbled across this graph this morning depicting Ted Williams’s batting average in various parts of the strike zone. I wish the numbers were bigger, but if you can make them out, it is pretty mind-blowing. No pitch was safe anywhere near the plate. This is how you hit .400 for a season.
Let me at ’em, low and outside.
That definitely would be the place to target. Even there, he’s got a respectable batting average.
I remember that I used to have one of those old Sears-Roebuck sports pamphlets (I think–well, I hope–I still have it somewhere) with batting tips from Ted that had a diagram like this as part of The Splinter explaining how to hit. He made it sound easy, but a legion of pitchers from my youth provided a constant and considerable rebuttal.
wk, did Williams really make it sound easy? I would love to read one of those pamphlets. I guess always had the wrong impression, that he made hitting sound really hard, studying the pitcher, maybe even keeping notes and being real serious about it as opposed to Mantle.
Put it this way–he made it look like even someone like me could do it.
Remember when Ozzie did those flips on the baseball bunch? I never really liked Ozzie, still don’t but I was really impressed by his flips and so stupid me, I tried it once off our garage, into the snow. Now I just watch white man can’t jump for the umpteenth time.