Saturday, December 24, 2022

CAREER-CAPPER: 1961 TED WILLIAMS

On the blog today, another 1960's "career-capper" from my card set released a couple of years ago celebrating the greats of the game that retired during that decade, this time a 1961 card celebrating perhaps the greatest hitter that ever lived, Ted Williams:




The Boston legend hung them up after the 1960 season, after 19 seasons of extraordinary baseball, losing parts of five seasons to military service, denying us some absolutely bonkers career statistics.
“The Splendid Splinter” was just incredible as a hitter. The last .400 hitter, 521 home runs, a .344 lifetime average with SIX batting titles, and the man missed MULTIPLE years in his prime due to war and his service in the military.
I remember as a kid (nerd alert) I used to love averaging out the three seasons before and after his missed seasons and then factoring them into his final career numbers, and they were insane!
If I remember correctly he would have had somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 home runs, 3500 hits, 2000+ runs scored and runs batted in along with the slugging and on-base percentages that would have made his already monster career just other-worldly!
The man was truly a “hitting-machine”, perhaps the greatest pure hitter ever (or the Babe? Or Cobb? Musial?).
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.