.400: A Disappearing Magic Number

Chipper Jones, after keeping his batting average above .400 for more than two months this baseball season, has finally dipped below that magic number -- to .394 currently. It seems unlikely that the Atlanta Braves third baseman will hit .400 this season. Chances are no one will -- ever again.

Hitting a baseball thrown at more than 90 miles per hour is tough. Batters who hit .300 (three hits for every 10 at-bats) are all-stars. Hitting .400 for a season? No one has done that since Ted Williams in 1941. But he was special.

Williams grew up poor in San Diego, California, but he knew what he wanted in life: "My dream was to walk down the street and have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.' "

He worked hard and made the Boston Red Sox team in 1939. He was 20, so reporters nicknamed him "The Kid." Right away Williams showed fans that he could hit. He batted .327 with 31 home runs and 145 runs batted in (RBI) in his rookie season. He hit .344 the next year.

But the 1941 season was really special. That year, Joe DiMaggio, the great center fielder for the New York Yankees, thrilled the baseball world by getting a hit in a record 56 consecutive games. But Williams was hitting even better: In June his batting average was over .430. It's hard to keep a batting average that high for a very long time -- just ask Chipper Jones. Williams's average slowly slid to .39955 in late September, with two games left to play.

In baseball, an average of .39955 is rounded up to .400. So Williams could have been a .400 hitter by sitting on the bench and not playing those last two games. The Yankees had already won the American League pennant, so the games didn't mean much. Even the Red Sox manager suggested that Williams sit out and protect his .400 batting average.

But Williams wanted to play. He told his manager, "If I can't hit .400 all the way, I don't deserve it."

Wow, did he play! In two games and eight at-bats against the Philadelphia Athletics, Williams smashed six hits, including a home run. The result was a .406 batting average for the season.

A few players have come close to the .400 mark since then. Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Fame outfielder who played for the San Diego Padres, hit .394 in 1994. George Brett, a Hall of Fame infielder with the Kansas City Royals, hit .390 in 1980.

But no one has hit .400 since Ted Williams. And perhaps no one ever will.

Fred Bowen writes KidsPost's sports opinion column and is an author of sports novels for kids. Beginning next week, his column will move to Thursdays.