Ted Williams – Splendid Splinter’s Hitting Advice Still Holds Up

Posted on December 15, 2011 by admin

What would Ted Williams have made of The Hitting Jack-It™ System?

Well, we think that “The Kid,” “The Splendid Splinter,” “Teddy Ballgame,” “The Thumper” and “John Glenn’s fighter-pilot wingman” would have loved the leading variable weighted hitting system.

Ted Williams had an abundance of nicknames, but none more appropriate than “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived.”

Williams played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox (1939–1942 and 1946–1960). He was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. A nineteen-time All-Star, he had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Williams recorded a hit 34 percent of the time; he reached base an astounding 48 percent of the time.

Williams was the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941). Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs. His career year was 1941, when he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored. His .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years.

His 2,654 hits place him just 71st on the all-time hitters list, but Williams’ career was twice interrupted by service as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter-bomber pilot.

Since its original publication in 1971, his book “The Science of Hitting” has reigned as the classic handbook on hitting.

“There are three things I would emphasize to any hitter before even considering the rudiments of a good swing,” Williams wrote. “These three things are more constant than the swing itself, and every bit as important.”

1) Get A Good Ball To Hit – The first rule in the book that Rogers Hornsby originally impressed on me long ago. You can see in the strike zone picture what I considered my happy areas, where I consistently hit the ball hard for high averages, and the areas graded down to those spots I learned to lay off, especially that low pitch on the outside 3 ½ inches from the plate.

2) Proper Thinking. The second rule that you must always take up there with you. Have you done your homework? What’s this guy’s best pitch? What did he get you out on last time? Proper thinking is 50 percent of effective hitting, and it is more than just doing your homework on a pitcher or studying the situation in a game. It is “anticipating”, too, when you are at the plate, and a lot of hitters will say that is college talk for “guessing” and some will be heard to say in a loud voice, “don’t do it!” They’re wrong. Guessing, or anticipating, goes hand in hand with proper thinking. A simple example: If a pitcher is throwing fast balls and curves and only the fast balls are in the strike zone, you would be silly to look for a curve, wouldn’t you?

3) Be Quick with the Bat. The third rule applies all the time. Your practice time will make your mechanics automatic. You have to think in terms of making everything quicker. How do you do that? You choke up a little bit. You quit trying to pull. You think more about that push swing, that 90-degree impact from the direction of the pitch. You think about hitting the ball back through the box. When you’ve shortened up and quickened up, you can wait longer, you get fooled less, you become more consistent getting wood on the ball. Psychologically, becoming a good two-strike hitter inspires confidence. A batter knows he can still hit with authority.

We at Hitting Jack-It™ agree with the Splendid One–being “Quick with the Bat” is what The Hitting Jack-It™ System is all about.

For more info on Ted Williams, see www.tedwilliams.com/index.php?page=phtips&level=1