During the campaign Williams put in a “typical” on-for-him season when he collected 163 hits over 420 at-bats, with 119 base-on-balls, along with 38 home runs and 87 runs batted in and 96 runs scored.
He led the American league in batting, on-base with an incredible .526 mark and slugging with an equally impressive .731 mark, leading to his fourth second-place finish in MVP voting, getting beat out by the New York Yankees Mickey Mantle for the honor.
The man was truly a “hitting-machine”, perhaps the greatest pure hitter ever (or the Babe? Or Cobb? Musial?).
It’s funny that Topps went and created a 20th anniversary card in the “Turn Back the Clock” sub-set in 1957 for Bob Keegan and his no-hitter of all things, yet didn’t feel THIS accomplishment by one of the all-time greats deserved one.
By the way, by today’s rules, Williams should have won SEVEN batting titles, but in 1954 he lost out to the Cleveland Indians Bobby Avila, who hit .341 with the THEN required official at-bats instead of 501 plate appearances.
Williams hit .345 with 526 plate appearances based on his 386 at-bats and 136 walks, but under the rules of the day was denied that seventh title.