The great Hall of Famer Ted Williams wrote a book in 1968 called “Science of Batting.” Actually, it was “written” by a guy named John Underwood, but supposedly it was Ted Williams telling the story. In it he says, “Hitting a baseball … is the single most difficult thing to do in sport.”
Ted Williams had a lifetime batting average of .291, even though he had one season in which he hit .400, the last person ever to do that. He was a superstar in his era and would have been a multi-millionaire if he were playing today.
Williams said, “I get raised eyebrows when I say that, but what is there that is harder to do—that requires more natural ability, more physical dexterity, more mental alertness? What is there that requires a greater finesse to go with physical strength, that has as many variables and as few constants, and with it all the continuing frustration of knowing that even if you are a .300 hitter—which is a rare item these days—you are going to fail at your job seven out of 10 times?”
Isn’t that amazing? Williams himself succeeded only 29 percent of the times he stepped into the batter’s box. And he is often regarded as the greatest hitter in the game. Twenty-nine percent gets you into Cooperstown.
One of my old colleagues at Wayland, David Fierke, dean of students, used the analogy about baseball to warn students that it was only in that game that you could succeed one in three times and expect to be “successful.” The “real world” didn’t work that way.
Williams justified his claim about hitting being the single most difficult athletic skill by saying that in other sports you don’t have a pitcher throwing curves and sliders and knuckle-balls and 98-mile-an-hour fastballs, and if he doesn’t like you, maybe a fastball at your head.
There’s a 3-inch diameter ball coming at you, and you have a bat that is only slightly larger, and you have to make the two objects meet.
At the time that I’m writing this, Brewers shortstop Jean Segura is leading the National League in hits, and he’s hitting .321, not quite one in three hits for every 10 times he comes to the plate. He’s an All-Star, folks! If he keeps this up, he’ll be able to renegotiate his contract for a bunch of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, Rickie Weeks is hitting a measly .179 (not quite two hits in every 10 at-bats!) and he gets $11.5 million a year! I wonder if Aaron Rodgers would be considered a superstar if he completed an average of less than two out of every 10 passes he threw.
Don’t get me wrong, please. I’m a huge sports fan. I love playing sports, watching sports, reading about sports. Sometimes, though, I get a little disenchanted with some of the outrageous salaries paid to today’s stars, especially since that translates into higher ticket prices at the gate. As much as I’d love to see a lot of games “live,” I just can’t justify spending that kind of money very often. And when some of today’s stars make 15 or 20 times what the president of the United States makes annually, there’s something skewed in our society.
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