It's Only Me by John Underwood

Author:John Underwood [Underwood, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2012-07-12T05:00:00+00:00

5. Four Oh Six

In 1941, just 23 years old and in only his third year in the major leagues, Ted Williams made the perfectly wonderful mistake of hitting .406 for the Boston Red Sox. No one had hit .400 or better for 11 years prior. No one has done it since—63 years and counting. The .406 has taken on a distant aura, like a planet; an accomplishment of almost unapproachable brilliance, as if it were done by Rembrandt instead of a skinny kid from San Diego.

Rarely has a batter in either league made a run at .400 since that .406. Williams himself came close in 1957 when, pushing 40, he hit .388. A much younger Rod Carew of the Minnesota Twins equaled the .388 in 1977. George Brett of Kansas City hit .390 in 1980, but no player in the American League has reached even .380 in the intervening 24 years. In 1994, Tony Gwynn of San Diego, a Williams disciple (“I read your book!” he said to Ted), hit .394, but dropped from contention in the seasons after that. Batting championships are routinely won with averages in the .350 range these days, sometimes well under that. Carl Yastremski won one with a .301.

“Mistake” was Ted Williams’ word to describe the .406, used sarcastically, for effect I’m sure, as the feat expanded in the public consciousness, and he felt the need every now and again to give the impression it was being over-examined. He knew better, of course. It was the central jewel in his crown, well worth examining, and as connected to his status as a man’s hand is to his wrist.

As a latecomer to the phenomenon, I was surprised by how often the “.400 thing” kept coming up in Ted’s presence, kept getting insinuated into conversations and situations. Senator Bob Graham mentioned it quite out of the blue while we were visiting in his Tallahassee office when he was governor of Florida—just laid it out as a passing tribute. In a doubles match one day at the tennis club where we sometimes played in Miami, Ted called out “four-oh” when he and I went ahead by that score, and one of our opponents yelled back, as if to complete the sentence, “Four-oh-six!” Ted growled, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

At a fishing camp on the Parismina River in Costa Rica, where we had gone for snook and tarpon, I was in a poker game with three other unwinding fishermen when one of them, also without preamble, asked Williams if he thought anybody in the big leagues would ever hit .400 again. Ted, no poker player, was in a nearby chair reading a sportsman’s magazine. “I sure hope so,” he said without looking up. “I’d hate to think I’m gonna have to answer that question the rest of my life.”

It was his stock reply to a stock question. And I heard it often enough to think he truly was tired of the fuss; that the .406 really was a mistake for what it had done to his precious privacy.

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