September 28, 1941, 80 years ago: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox goes into the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season with a batting average of .39955. That's enough to lead both major leagues in the category. And, officially, it would be rounded up to a .400 batting average.
His manager, and also the Red Sox shortstop, Joe Cronin, offers to let him sit out the doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, which will allow him to preserve the .400 average.
But he would know that it wasn't really .40000. He said he had to play.
Well, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
July 8, 1941: Major League Baseball holds its All-Star Game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) New York Yankees Joe DiMaggio (center field) and Bill Dickey (catcher) start the game for the American League, and Red Ruffing, Marius Russo, Joe Gordon and Charlie Keller are reserves. DiMaggio gets a hit, but it doesn't count toward his hitting streak, which now stands at 48 straight games. Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians is the AL's starting pitcher.
Among New York's National League teams, the New York Giants have no starters, but have reserves Harry Danning (catcher), Mel Ott (right field) and Carl Hubbell (pitcher); while the Brooklyn Dodgers have starters Whitlow Wyatt (pitcher), Mickey Owen (catcher) and Pete Reiser (center field), and reserves Dolph Camilli (1st base), Billy Herman (2nd base), Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto (3rd base) and Joe Medwick (left field).
The NL leads 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th, but a groundout by DiMaggio had gotten a run home, cut it to 5-4. Claude Passeau of the Chicago Cubs faced Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, then batting .405 in regular season play. Williams crashed a drive into the upper deck in right field, giving the AL a 7-5 win.
It was the 1st time the All-Star Game ended on a home run, what would now be called a "walkoff home run." This feat has since been matched by Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1955, and Johnny Callison of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964, both for the NL.
Ted had started the season on April 15, against the Washington Senators at Fenway Park. Building on a great rookie season in 1939, and a somewhat disappointing 1940 season, he only appeared as a pinch-hitter, for pitcher Earl Johnson in the bottom of the 9th. The Red Sox went into the inning trailing 6-4, but Frankie Pytlak led off the inning with a double, and Ted singled him home. They tied the game, and finally loaded the bases, setting up a walk-off walk by Cronin.
Ted finished April batting .389. Big deal, lots of players have had .400 in their sights at that point in the season, and most of those don't even make .300 at the end. By May 2, his average dropped to .308. He got up to .383 by May 12, but dropped to .333 on May 16. Then he went on a hot streak, and on May 25, was above .400, at .404. In a doubleheader against Detroit on June 1, he went 4-for-9 with a homer and 4 RBIs, and was at .431. He got to .436 on June 6.
In a doubleheader against the Senators on July 6, he fell to .399 after the 1st game, but was back up to .405 after the 2nd game, at which point the All-Star Break was reached.
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This is what the world was like in the 2nd half of the 1941 Major League Baseball season. It wasn't good:
There were a great many legends in baseball at the time, but many of them were kept separate from the major leagues, in what were called the Negro Leagues. And some of the ones that were in the white majors would soon be in the U.S. armed forces: Williams himself, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller. Hank Greenberg already was, having been inducted into the U.S. Army on May 7, 1941.
There were no Asian players in MLB. There were a few Hispanics, but they were light-skinned enough that the cliché was that they were "as pure as Castilian soap." By this point, pretty much every team had its games broadcast on radio, but television had yet to go to networks. Computers were still an idea. There was no artificial turf, and no stadiums had domes, retractable or otherwise. The only ballparks used by MLB teams then that are still being used today are Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago.
Of the defining players of my childhood, Carl Yastrzemski turned 2, Willie Stargell was 1, Pete Rose had been born at the beginning of the season, and Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, Thurman Munson, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Steve Garvey, Mike Schmidt, Dave Winfield and George Brett were not born yet. In contrast, Hugh Duffy, Cy Young, Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb were still alive, and Connie Mack was still managing.
The Cincinnati Reds were the holders of baseball's World Championship, the Chicago Bears of football's, the Boston Bruins of hockey's, and... the Wisconsin-based Oshkosh All-Stars had won the 1941 Championship of the National Basketball League. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Joe Louis.
World War II would lead to the cancellation of England's Football League from the 1939-40 through the 1945-46 seasons, and its FA Cup from 1939-40 through 1944-45. Wimbledon was canceled from 1940 to 1945, and the Australian Open from 1941 to 1945. The French Open was only canceled in 1940, because the Nazi invasion was going on at the time, and Nazi-controlled Vichy France restarted it for 1941.
For 1940, the Winter Olympics were supposed to be held in Garmisch, Nazi Germany, where they had been held in 1936, but the International Olympic Committee canceled them due to Nazi aggression.
The Summer Olympics were scheduled for Tokyo. Because of Japan's war crimes, they were moved to Helsinki. But Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union in what became known as the Winter War, and the Games were canceled outright.
For 1944, the Winter Olympics were set for Cortina d'Ampezzo, in the Italian Alps, but Fascist Italy, like Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, was part of the Axis. So the Games were canceled. London had been awarded the 1944 Summer Olympics, but the battering the city took from Nazi planes made this impractical. London got the 1948 Summer Olympics; Cortina, the 1956 Winter Olympics. Japan did not host the Olympics until Summer 1964; Germany, until Summer 1972.
Germany and Brazil had submitted bids to host soccer's 1942 World Cup, but FIFA canceled it before deciding. The war not ending until May 1945 in Europe and August 1945 in Asia made it impossible to hold qualifying matches, so no World Cup was held in 1946, either. Brazil got it for 1950, but Germany had to wait until 1974.
Since World War II, the Olympics have been held 5 times in America; 4 times in Japan; 3 times in Canada and Italy; twice each in Britain, Norway, Australia, Austria, France, Russia, Korea; and once each in Switzerland, Finland, Mexico, Germany, Bosnia, Spain, Greece, China and Brazil. The World Cup has been held twice each in Mexico, Germany and Brazil; and once each in America, England, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa and Russia.
There were 48 States in the Union, and 22 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There had not been a Civil Rights Act since 1875. There was no Medicare, Medicaid, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA or Title IX. The idea that a woman had the right to decide for herself if and when to have a child was radical, and the idea that two people of the same gender could marry each other, and have the same rights and privileges as regular married couples, was considered absurd. But then, no one was willing to publicly tell the lie that corporations were "people" and entitled to the rights thereof.
The President of the United States was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Former President Herbert Hoover, his wife, and the widows of Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and even Grover Cleveland were still alive. Harry Truman was a U.S. Senator from Missouri. Dwight D. Eisenhower held the rank of Colonel, and was Chief of Staff to General Walter Kreuger, Commander of the Third Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
John F. Kennedy was trying to enlist in the U.S. Navy; so far, his bad back was keeping him out. Lyndon Johnson was in his 3rd term as a Congressman from Texas. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were practicing law. Nixon had applied to be an FBI Agent, and was approved, but lost the job before he could take it, due to budget cuts. Interesting how history turns.
Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were in high school. Ronald Regan was acting. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden hadn't been born yet.
The Governor of the State of New York was Herbert Lehman. The Mayor of the City of New York was Fiorello La Guardia. The Governor of the State of New Jersey was Charles Edison, son of Thomas Alva Edison. In the place where Ted Williams plied his trade, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was Leverett Saltonstall, and the Mayor of the City of Boston was Maurice Tobin.
There were still living veterans of the Italian War of Independence, the French Invasion of Mexico, the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, and the Zulu War.
The Nobel Peace Prize hadn't been awarded since 1938, to the League of Nations' refugee office. The Pope was Pius XII. The current Pope, Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was 4 years old.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain was Winston Churchill; and of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King. The monarch of both was King George VI; his daughter and heir, Princess Elizabeth, was 14 years old. As I said, England's Football League and FA Cup were on hold, so the holders of the former were still Everton, the "blue club" in Liverpool; and the latter were Portsmouth, of Hampshire.
There have since been 15 Presidents of the United States, 15 Prime Ministers of Britain (17 if you count the nonconsecutive terms of Churchill and Harold Wilson separately), and 7 Popes.
Major novels of 1941 included Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain, What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg, The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel, and the posthumous last novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon.
C.S. Lewis published The Screwtape Letters, but had not yet written any of his Narnia material. His close friend and fellow Oxford University professor J.R.R. Tolkien had published The Hobbit, but had not yet moved on to his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Ian Fleming was working in British Naval Intelligence. Gene Roddenberry was attending Los Angeles City College. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling weren't born yet.
Major films of the Summer of 1941 included Sergeant York, Pimpernel Smith, Major Barbara, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, the Spencer Tracy version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the 1st one to pronounce the name of the "good guy" as "JECK-ill" rather than "JEEK-ill"), Life Begins for Andy Hardy and The Little Foxes.
The DC Comics superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (known today as "Shazam") and the "Golden Age" versions of the Flash, Green Lantern and Green Arrow had been created. Aquaman would debut later in the year. But the only Marvel Comics hero that today's MCU fans would recognize was Captain America. The Sub-Mariner and the original version of the Human Torch had also debuted, but have not been filmed yet. Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman was working in his native Canada, as an editor on the National Film Board.
The Number 1 song in America was "Blue Champagne," by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, with Bob Eberly singing the vocal. (No relation to the Everly Brothers.) Jimmy's brother Tommy led an orchestra whose lead singer was 25-year-old Frank Sinatra. The Glenn Miller Orchestra released their recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo." Elvis Presley was 6 years old; John Lennon and Ringo Starr, 1 year; Bob Dylan, 3 months; Paul Simon, about to be born.
Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $18.61 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 3 cents, and a New York Subway ride 5 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 19 cents, a cup of coffee 17 cents, a burger 25 cents, a movie ticket 25 cents, a new car $925, and a new house $6,900. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the preceding Friday at 125.81.
The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. There were no mobile telephones, and barely half the homes in America even had phones. Phone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."
Most movies were black and white. There were no photocopiers. Alan Turing was still working on developing one of the earliest computers. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee wouldn't be born for another 14 years. There were no credit cards or automatic teller machines.
Artificial organs were not yet possible. Transplantation of organs was not possible. The distribution of antibiotics was not possible: If you got any kind of infection, you could easily die. There was no polio vaccine. There had been rockets, but, as yet, no space vehicles.
As Ted Williams marched toward .400, the Nazis began using the term "Final Solution of the Jewish question," and also began using the pesticide Zyklon B to execute prisoners. The Siege of Leningrad began. The Ustaše, Croatian fascists, killed 200 Communist Serbs in an Orthodox church. The SS killed over 23,000 Ukrainian Jews in Kamianets, and another 35,000 in Mykolaiv. And the submarine U-652 fired on the American destroyer USS Greer, though it was not hit.
In America, the 1st Jeep -- from "GP" or "general purpose" vehicle -- was produced. Pilot Charles Lindbergh gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, accusing Jews of leading America toward war, and ruining his hero status forever. And off the coast of Newfoundland, still a British colony, not yet a Province of Canada, President Roosevelt and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill met for the 1st time.
Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mickey Welch died. Emmett Till, and Martha Stewart, and Bernie Sanders were born. So were music legends Martha Reeves, and George Clinton, and Cass Elliott. So were Basketball Hall-of-Famer Nate Thurmond, and Stephen Jay Gould, scientist and correspondent for Ken Burns' Baseball. And baseball luminaries John "Boog" Powell, and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson.
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From July 11 to 24, Ted Williams' batting average hovered in the .390s, before poking back above .400 on July 25. It stayed over .400 throughout August, peaking at .414 on August 21. At the end of the month, it was .407. On September 7, it was .413. In a September 14 home doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox, it got to .411 in the opener, then dropped below .410 in the nightcap, never to cross that level again.
By Ted's standards, what followed was a slump. Despite an 8-game winning streak that secured 2nd place behind the Yankees for the Red Sox, Ted had some trouble. He went hitless on September 12, 13 and 18, and in the 1st game of a doubleheader on September 24. When the dust settled after the Sox' 5-1 win over Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park on September 27, Ted's batting average was .39955.
The rise of Babe Ruth and the start of the Lively Ball Era in 1920 hadn't stopped .400 averages, but by 1930, pretty much everybody was swinging for the fences. Less contact hitting meant lower averages. In 1930, Bill Terry of the New York Giants batted .401. No one had batted .400 in a season since. No National Leaguer has done it again to this day.
September 28, 1941, 80 years ago: Last day of the season. A doubleheader. As many as 10 chances to hurt himself at the plate. Not his home park. Cronin offers to let him sit and protect his ".400 batting average." But the Splendid Splinter, all of 23 years old, understands what his place in baseball history would have really been, and insists on playing the doubleheader.
On his 1st trip to the plate in the opener, A's catcher Frankie Hayes tells Ted that "Mr. Mack said to pitch to you," instead of walking him. Mack realized it wouldn't be fair to deny Ted the .400 average on a technicality. Home plate umpire Al Barlick, who was supposed to remain impartial, gave Ted an aphorism, if not advice: "If you're gonna hit .400, you gotta be loose." Thanks to what Hayes said that Mack said, Ted was already loose.
He singles to right off Dick Fowler in the 2nd inning. He hits a home run off Fowler leading off the 5th. He singles to right off Porter Vaughan in the 6th. He hits an RBI single to right off Vaughan in the 7th. Batting against Tex Shirley in the 9th, he reaches on an error by the A's' 2nd baseman -- Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis of Durham, North Carolina, for whom the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham would be named. So the one time in the game that he doesn't get a hit, he gets on base anyway. Despite a 9-run A's outburst in the 5th inning, the Sox win, 12-11.
Ted's batting average is now .404. Even if he goes 0-for-4 in the nightcap, he will still finish at .4004. (Going 0-for-5 would have made him .39956.) He plays anyway. Batting against Fred Caligiuri, he singles to right in the 2nd, doubles to center in the 4th, and flies to left in the 7th.
Because Pennsylvania had only legalized professional sporting events on Sunday in 1934, and had a 7:00 PM curfew for them on Sundays, the A's were already up 7-1, and Ted's .400 was secure, it was agreed between the umpires and the managers, Cronin and Mack, that the 1st game would end after 8 innings, thus denying Ted a 4th at-bat in the game. He finishes the season with 185 hits in 456 at-bats, for a batting average of .405701754, rounded off to .406.
Ironically, the Sox pitcher in the 2nd game was former A's star Lefty Grove. It was the last appearance of a Hall of Fame career in which he went 300-141. Fred Caligiuri, who lived to be 100 and died in 2018, was the last living player from this doubleheader.
DiMaggio was awarded the American League MVP. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season. They forget that the award is named Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox closer than 17 games out of 1st place, although they did finish 2nd, 7 games ahead of the 3rd-place White Sox. Joe's great season put the Yankees on a run that led to them winning the World Series.
In 1957, Ted came close to .400 again, at age 39, batting .388. In 1960, in his last major league at-bat, he hit a home run, the 521st of his career. He finished with a .344 lifetime batting average, the highest of any player who debuted after 1917.
In 1977, Rod Carew was over .400 for much of the season, and finished at .388. In 1980, George Brett was over .400 in September, and finished at .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was at .394 when the strike hit on August 12. Ted died in 2002, and since then, there have been no living human beings who have hit .400 in a season.
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