Ted Williams was a great hitter for many reasons: great eyesight, hard work, a will to succeed, and last but not least, his listening abilities. From his time in the minor leagues, right up through his entire major- league career, Ted sought out the Svengalis of swing and the high priests of hitting. He learned at the feet of Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins. He conferred with Bill Terry. He interrogated Collins about Shoeless Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Cobb. Some of the advice he dismissed as incompatible with his own approach to hitting. Cobb's theories, for example, were completely foreign to Ted. Others he embraced, enhanced and added to his repertoire.

September 27, 1941 was a drizzly late summer evening in Philadelphia. It had rained hard earlier in the day, canceling the ballgame, and passersby rushed heads down along the tree-lined streets, scarcely noticing the tall athletic man and the shorter, stockier man walking along in animated conversation. Few of the onlookers were aware that the taller man was on the verge of a feat so rare that it has not been repeated in any baseball season since.

They walked through business areas and neighborhoods with immaculately manicured lawns. Occasionally, the shorter man would duck into a bar for a quick refresher, while the athlete went for ice cream. The taller man, Red Sox phenom Ted Williams, and his less imposing friend, clubhouse boy Johnny Orlando, were talking hitting-specifically the next day's season- ending doubleheader between the Red Sox and the hometown Athletics. Ted reckons they walked about ten miles that night. Exactly what was said is long forgotten, but knowing Williams, he was analyzing the pitchers he would see the next day-what they might throw in particular situations and on specific counts.

The last time anyone had batted .400 was 1930, more than a decade earlier, when Bill Terry batted .401 for the National League's New York Giants. Terry had been the closest thing Ted had to a boyhood idol. The last American Leaguer to reach the mark was Harry Heilmann, way back in 1923. As he walked, Ted remembered the encouraging words he had heard from Heilmann a few weeks earlier: "Just hit the way you can hit, and you'll be all right."

Going into the twin bill, Williams was batting precisely .39955-which for math majors everywhere, and certainly by major league baseball standards, would make him a .400 hitter. But Ted's personal standards were even higher. He did not want to leave his fate up to the discretion of a statistician in some airless league office. Earlier that same evening, Sox manager Joe Cronin had suggested that maybe Ted would like to sit out the last two meaningless games to preserve the coveted mark. Ted's reply was as blunt as it was powerful. "If I can't hit .400 all the way, I don't deserve it," he said. There was no argument.

Just before this crucial two-game finale, Al "Bucketfoot" Simmons, then a coach for the Athletics, swaggered into the Red Sox dugout, intent on planting doubts in the young hitter's mind. Four times in his career, Simmons, a lifetime .334 hitter, had averaged over .380, leading the American League in 1930 and '31. He and Cobb had always criticized Williams for being too selective at the plate. Approaching Ted, he taunted: "How much you wanna bet you don't hit .400?" Lesser men would have found the challenge from a bona fide Hall of Famer disconcerting, if not devastating. Not so Williams. If anything, it had the opposite effect, galvanizing Ted to the task at hand.

September 28 broke cold, damp and dreary at Shibe Park-the sort of day that signaled the imminent move from the diamond to the gridiron. The crowd of 10,000 who braved the unpleasant conditions was rooting for the kid from Boston. In fact, they were pulling for him all the way. As he entered the batter's box, he heard home plate umpire Bill McGowan mutter: "To hit .400 a player has got to be loose." Ted had always enjoyed a great relationship with umpires; he respected them and never showed them up, and they, in return, marveled at his uncanny knowledge of the strike zone.

Ted was undeniably loose. He singled sharply in his first at-bat, then homered to straightaway center field, and finished the game with two more singles and a walk. After game one, there was no way he could fail to hit .400, and many felt he would sit out the second game with a clear conscience. To the surprise and delight of the Philadelphia fans, however, Ted trotted out to his position in left field. In game two, he confirmed his legend by doubling off the loudspeaker in right field and adding another hit. At the end of the day, he had accumulated six hits in eight at-bats, raising his average to .406.

Heilmann had been right; Simmons dead wrong! Ironically, perhaps appropriately, in 1927, Heilmann had also battled down to the wire before capturing the American League batting title. Like Ted, he had refused to sit out the second game of a doubleheader to preserve his title. He picked up three hits to raise his average to .398 and win handily over the runner up-one Al "Bucketfoot" Simmons.

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