My nine-year old LOVES baseball, and he loves hitting, and he really likes to read. So I went out on amazon and bought a cheap used copy of “The Science of Hitting” by Ted Williams. It is a great book, with lots of pictures to keep your nine year-old ADHD kid interested, and some great nuggets from one of the greatest hitters ever.
Here are a few that stood out to me…..apparently Ted Williams would LOVE Adam Dunn.
“Ty Cobb once said, ‘Ted Williams sees more of the ball than any man alive-but he demands a perfect pitch. He takes too many base on balls.’
I didn’t resent that. I’m sure Cobb thought he was right. What is “seeing”?. I had 20-10 vision. A lot of guys can see that well……….What I had more of wasn’t eyesight, it was discipline…..”
and this
“I have said that a good hitter can hit a pitch that is over the plate three times better than a great hitter with a questionable ball in a tough spot. Pitchers still make enough mistakes to give you some in your happy zone. But the greatest hitter living can’t hit bad balls good.”
MAN THERE ARE A MILLION of these!!
“Now, if a .250 hitter up forty times gets 10 hits, maybe if he had laid off bad pitches he would have gotten five walks. That’s five few at-bats or 10 hits for 35 or .286 And he would have scored more….because he would have been on base more.”
I don’t remember that…did Williams say Benzinger would be good?
Interesting, where did he say that?
that seems strange since Benzinger didn’t hit for power, or take walks. I wonder what the context was.