Chris Russo said about Ted Williams – who he called an immortal – that he was a bit too caught up in the science of hitting and wouldn’t swing at a ball slightly off the plate with two strikes in the ninth of a big game. He’d take the walk.
I think this criticism is misplaced. Hitting a baseball is the most difficult of tasks in sport. Since the ball is coming in at 95 mph, it requires trained reflexes. There’s no time to think. Ted had a .482 on base % because he was so disciplined. He had a slugging % of .634 because he was disciplined about which pitches to swing at in the string zone. When asked about not adjusting to the Ted Williams shift, he said that he didn’t want to pick up bad habits. Here too, if he swung at the pitch that was outside the plate, he might pick up bad habits.
You can’t question a man with an OPS of 1.116. He knew what he was doing.
Also, as for his being a pain in the neck (another comment of chris) that was only
with reporters, not with teammates. He was the life of the clubhouse, big
personality as we know.
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