Perhaps the greatest pure hitter in the game's history, Ted Williams played his entire 22-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox (1939–1942 and 1946–1960). "The Splendid Splinter" was a two-time American League MVP winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. A nineteen-time All-Star, he had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.
I completed this sketch card in August 2012.
10 random facts about Ted Williams:
- Williams recorded a hit 34% of the time, and he reached base an astounding 48 percent of the time.
- Williams was the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941).
- Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs.
- His career year was 1941, when he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored; his .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years.
- He won the Triple Crown in 1942 and 1947, yet was not voted MVP in either of those standout years.
- Williams' career was twice interrupted by service as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter-bomber pilot.
- Williams nearly always took the first pitch, reasoning that the ability to gauge the pitcher's "stuff" was worth conceding a first strike.
- He became the Texas Rangers' first manager in 1972, immediately after the team relocated from Washington, DC to Arlington.
- An avid sport fisherman, he hosted a television program about fishing, and he was inducted into the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame.
- On November 18, 1991, Ted Williams was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush
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