On this day in 1941, Ted Williams did what hadn't been done since 1930 and still hasn't been done since: He finished a season with a better than .400 batting average.
The story of the last day is a great one. The Sox were scheduled to play a double header against the A's (the Philadelphia A's... Moneyball was still many years away). Before the games started his average was .3996, or something like that, high enough to round up to .400. His manager gave him the option of skipping the final two games in order to guarantee finishing the year at .400. Williams turned down the offer and got six hits in eight at bats over the two games, finishing at .406.
You would think that hitting .400 would make you a lock for the Most Valuable Player award, right? Wrong. Some asshat named Joe DiMaggio had himself a little 56 game hitting streak that stole some of Teddy Ballgame's thunder. Joe's brother Dom had an all star season playing centerfield for the Red Sox that year too. I bet the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry made things odd at the DiMaggio's house on Thanksgiving.
In a related story, on this day in 1960 Ted Williams came to the plate for the last time in his baseball career and slammed a home run over the right field wall at Fenway Park. He wrapped up a career that was nothing special. A .344 lifetime batting average (really, most great hitters go their whole lives without even sniffing at .344 and he averaged it for his career), 521 home runs, and, keeping with the Moneyball theme, a .483 lifetime on-base percentage. Ya, nothing special. Oh, and he missed five seasons in his prime while flying planes for the Marines in World War II and Korea. Ya, nothing special.
If that doesn't inspire the Red Sox to win tonight, nothing will.
Go Red Sox!!
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