Ted Williams

Said by baseball experts to be "the greatest hitter who ever lived"

Pictures from Life Magazine, Sept 1 1941 - the year Ted Williams hit a season batting average of .406 — the last baseball hitter to go over .400 for a season.

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Already, the most consistent hitter in big league baseball is a young gangling, 22-year-old outfielder named Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox.

Earlier, when Ted was only 20-yrs old and new to the big leagues, he said this "All I want out of life is when I walk down the street, folks will say, there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived."

Ted Williams is a great hitter for 3 major reasons: eyes, wrists and forearms. He has what ballplayers call "camera eyes" which allow him to focus on a pitched ball as it zooms down its 60-ft. path from the pitcher's hand, accurately judge its intended path across the plate, and reach for it. He even claims he can see the ball and bat meet.

The rest of his formula is never to stop swinging the bat. Both on and off the baseball field he constantly wields a bat to keep the spring in his powerful wrist. Even when he is in the outfield he sometimes keeps waving his arms in a batting arc. And, more than most other great batters, he keeps his body out of his swing, puts all his drive into his forearms.

Here are several very old and rare pictures taken by Gjon Mili of a young 22-year old baseball player named Ted Wiliams (wearing shorts only) which shows Ted's great coordination of these factors, and split-second release of power which enabled Ted Williams to hit safely four out of every ten times he came to bat in major-league baseball games in his long career.