Posted by: Jude (wayout1@columbus.rr.com) on Sun Jan 20 02:27:13 2008

Hi again J.M.

I hope your never ending debate with Teacherman can be put on hold so you (and possibly others) can read this posting. I had typed everything I wanted to but was instructed when I tried to post that I had made a mistake. The lengthy posting was not transmitted. So I'm going to try for the final time to get through.

I found your remarks about Ferroli and flat hand hitting interesting, to say the least. But before I go there,I would like to provide some supporting facts about pitching and hitting in Williams' time in comparison with today's hitting and pitching.

I think it might be true to assume that you do not think size of pitchers is much of a factor in the comparison of today's pitchers with those of Williams' era. Present day Billy Wagner is 5'10 and 180 lbs. and has occasionally been clock over a 100 mph. Feller was 6' and 185 and was occasionally clocked over 100.

Virgil Trucks, a fastball pitcher, who I previously indicated Williams hit more home runs off of than any other pitcher, like Feller, who still claims today that Williams is the greatest hitter of all time, also had a very high regard for Williams. In a book he wrote titled, THROWING HEAT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF VIRGIL TRUCKS he identified Dimaggio, Dickey, Mantle and Berra (who he pitched down the middle of the plate since he was a notorious good bad ball hitter,who swung at anything remotely close to the plate) as his toughest outs. Not surprisingly though, he identified Williams as the toughest out of them all.

Trucks was hardly a mediocre pitcher from the 50's. He is only one of four major league pitchers to pitch two no hitters in one season. Moreover, in the same season in another game he retired the first 26 batters before someone hit a single off of him.

I think that in this thread most of the advantages that hitters have today that Williams' era didn't may have been covered. Better traveling conditions and lighting may not have been mentioned. (Lighting is so good today that there are hitters who prefer night games to day games.) But I don't believe that one of the most important ones was cited i.e.,the lowering of the mound. Williams who was voted player of the decade in the 50's never enjoyed this advantage in that decade.

In 1969 the mound was lowered. How significant was this in terms of the effect that it has had up to the present? I doubt any one has really done a good all around study of this. There needs to be one, because of the following, if for another reason. In 1968 Bob Gibson had that great season when he posted a 1.12 era, along with 13 shutouts. In 1969, after the lowering of the mound, his era almost doubled and he pitched just 4 shutouts. (It has been suggested by a former pitcher that to help significantly compensate for some of the hitting advantages that have been created for today's hitters that the mound height be restored to that of 1968. This would in no way disturb the dimensions of the shrunken parks. The former pitcher may have been Jim Bouton.)

It doesn't seem to me from what was written by Ferroli about the flat hand hitting position that Williams saying, "Why not!" was a ringing endorsement for that position. Where Ferroli puts an exclamation point I would put a question mark. I would be concerned if Williams had mentioned and endorsed this position in his own book, which is a classic that impressionable youngsters are more likely to read. Is there anything in Williams' book that you disagree with? I ask that question knowing that there are a lot of omissions, but think he made important valid points that have stood the test of time.

It is true that Williams held the bat vertically because as he stated in his book it made the bat feel lighter. Later on in a season becauseof the fatigue factor he would go to a lighter bat. (The option of performance enhancing drugs did not exist.) However, he never used a bat as light as Musial. He said in a t.v. interview that he could never have used the little bitty bat that Musial used.

The most important reason of all why Williams held the bat vertically was revealed at a restaurant in a private conversation with Mattingly and Boggs. (Did Ferroli mention this in his book?) Williams stated that he could get the ball more easily in the air with the vertical bat position. He also stated that he hit more ground balls than balls in the air even with a vertical bat position. It is understandable why Williams' main goal was to get a good pitch and then hit it hard. It is interesting to speculate what his average would have been if he had not held his bat verically, and whether his ground balls would not have been hit as hard without the vertical position. (In the great season that Williams had nearing retirement he lacked 5 hits of hitting 400. It has been pointed out that he didn't have a single infield hit that season.) As you know only about 20 percent of ground balls go through the infield. The harder a player can hit ground balls the more likely that percentage is to increase. Williams had to be mindful of this.

THG has posted a video photage of Williams. Have you checked it? The part that is captioned Williams says goodby has a picture of him standing bareheadedatthe plate with the bat slanted sharply behind him. As you know,Wlliams believed that the bat plane had to match the downward plane of the pitch. To me Williams' bat always seem to dip behind him more than any player I ever seen. I even think I saw somewhere where the bat was dipped so much that the wrist bone of his lead hand was pointed up so that it looked like it was in a supinating position. What is your opinion of this?

The likes of Williams the hitter, will never be seen again. Many hitters today look like they are products of a cookie cutter. No one is going to try to emulate the greatest hitter of all. Kiner tried to emulate Ruth and failed. He ultimately became a great homerun hitter by listening to his batting coach.