>>I honestly believe that he may well have been the finest pure hitter baseball has ever seen. He had incredible vision (which is why he held marksmanship records in the air force). He once 'praised' umpires by saying that he thought they were remarkable and they could tell the difference between a ball and a strike to half an inch. The problem, he said, was that he could tell the difference to a quarter of an inch.
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>Even growing up as a Yankee fan, I have to admit you're probably right about his being the best pure hitter. I don't know if he would have broken Ruth's home run record without his military service, but it certainly would have been close.
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>The Hall of Fame has a wonderful Ted Williams exhibit. It's a picture of home plate broken into tic-tac-toe sections and his estimate of his batting average if every pitch were thrown in that section. One of the more interesting things there.

I think it was Sports Illustrated a number of years ago, that did a similar sort of thing only in 3 dimensions. It was a story on Ted Williams and again, he discussed what his batting average would have been if all the pitches were thrown in the particular 3 dimensional airspace.

It was fascinating.

Funny thing too about his last major league 'at bat' - the famous homer. Williams always said he could have played another 5 years if it hadn't been for the slider (he was really an above the waist hitter), but that last at bat - from what I recall, it was a slider.