September 28, 1941: Ted Williams, left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, enters the last day of baseball's regular season with a batting average of .39955, which would have been officially rounded up to .400. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offers to let him sit and protect his ".400 batting average."
But the Splendid Splinter, all of 23 years old, understands what his place in baseball history would have really been, and insists on playing the doubleheader, against Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park. (It was renamed Connie Mack Stadium for the A's manager in 1953.)
Ted remembered that the home plate umpire, Al Barlick, required to remain neutral, told him before the game, "In order to bat .400, you gotta be loose." And the A's catcher, Frankie Hayes, told him what their manager, Connie Mack, said: "Mr. Mack told us to pitch to you." The A's would not be walking him, intentionally or semi-intentionally, in order to stop him: They would try to stop him fair and square.
They couldn't. He singled to right in the 2nd inning, hit a home run leading off the 5th, singled to right in the 6th, hit an RBI single to right in the 7th, and reached on an error in the 9th, by the A's 2nd baseman -- Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis of Durham, North Carolina, for whom the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham would be named. So the one time he didn't get a hit, he gots on base anyway. Despite a 9-run A's outburst in the 5th inning, the Sox won, 12-11.
Ted's batting average was now .404. Even if he had gone 0-for-4 in the nightcap, he would still have finished at .4004. (Going 0-for-5 would have made him .39956.) He played anyway. He singled to right in the 2nd, doubled to center in the 4th, and flew to left in the 7th.
Because Pennsylvania had only legalized professional sporting events on Sundays in 1934, and had a 7:00 PM curfew for such games, the A's were already up 7-1, and Ted's .400 was secure, it was agreed between the umpires and the managers, Cronin and Mack, that the 1st game would end after 8 innings, thus denying Ted a 4th at-bat in the game. He finished the season with 185 hits in 456 at-bats, for a batting average of .405701754, rounded off to .406.
Ironically, the Sox pitcher in the 2nd game was former A's star Lefty Grove. It was the last appearance of a Hall of Fame career in which he went 300-141. A's pitcher Fred Caligiuri, who lived to be 100 and died in 2018, was the last living player from this doubleheader.
Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees was awarded the American League MVP. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season. They forget that the award is named Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox above 6th place. Joe's great season put the Yankees on a run that led to them winning the World Series.
In 1957, Ted came close to .400 again, at age 39, batting .388. In 1977, Rod Carew was over .400 for much of the season, and finished at .388. In 1980, George Brett was over .400 in September, and finished at .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was at .394 when the strike hit on August 12. Ted died in 2002, and since then, there have been no living human beings who have hit .400 in a season. (Bill Terry of the 1930 New York Giants, at .401, remains the last to do it in the National League.)
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September 28, 1941 was a Sunday. These other major league games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 5-0 at Yankee Stadium. This didn't matter to the Yankees: They had clinched the AL Pennant on September 4, the earliest Pennant-clinching date in AL history. Sid Hudson pitched a 4-hit shutout for the Senators, allowing only a single to Tommy Henrich and a double to DiMaggio in the 4th inning, and singles to Joe Gordon and Phil Rizzuto in the 8th. He didn't walk any batters, either.
* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 2-1 at Braves Field in Boston.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-1 at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers had clinched the Pennant, their 1st in 21 years, in Boston 3 days earlier, but the Yankees would beat them in the World Series in 5 games.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-0 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Thornton Lee pitched a 6-hit shutout.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. For the Cards, a 20-year-old rookie named Stan Musial went 1-for-4.
* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
There were also NFL games that day:
* The football version of the New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins, 17-10 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers, 25-17 at City Stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
* The football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers had played before, beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-13 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
* Also playing the day before were the Chicago Cardinals and the Detroit Lions, to a 14-14 tie at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Rams had a bye week.
* And 1 game was played in the rival American Football League: The New York Americans beat the Milwaukee Chiefs, 10-3 at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. This version of the AFL suspended operations for World War II, and never resumed. The Americans, named after the hockey team, played their games at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island.
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