Baseball’s Greatest Hitters: Ty Cobb and Ted Williams

Great hitters Ty Cobb and Ted Williams. Image credits: Pinterest

What made Ty Cobb and Ted Williams baseball’s greatest hitters?

Sharp eyesight, certainly. The ability to pick up the spin on a pitch as soon as it left a pitcher’s hand. Good reflexes.

But a lot of successful ballplayers had those attributes.

What separated Cobb and Williams from the thousands of other hitters who have swung a bat in the big leagues was their concentration on studying and reading pitchers’ minds —the mental aspect of the game – in order to anticipate what the next pitch would be.

There have been plenty of guess-hitters, but there’s a big difference between guessing and calculating.

Ty Cobb spent many waking hours figuring out how best to outwit opponents, from inventing sliding techniques to avoid tags on the bases to studying the movements of fish in a lake to improve his chances of hooking them.

Early in his career, he faced the future Hall of Fame left-handed fireballer Rube Waddell. Waddell’s first pitch was a fastball for a strike.  Cobb flinched, jumping back as though in fear for his life. Waddell fired another fastball over the plate. This time Cobb laced it for extra bases.

After the game, he explained, “I knew if I looked like I was scared, he’d throw another identical pitch and I was ready for it.”  Waddell admitted that Ty Cobb had read his mind.

Williams, although an avid and expert fisherman, limited his studies primarily to the science of hitting a baseball. He had already mastered the physical aspects of swinging a bat and learning the strike zone when he joined the Red Sox as a rookie in 1939. Now he began his study of pitchers’ minds.

Elden Auker was a veteran pitcher with the Red Sox. 

Elden Auker

This was Ted Williams’s rookie year. He was just a kid. From his first day of spring training, he was one of the great students of the game. Constantly asking questions about pitchers. By the time the season started, he knew as much about every pitching staff in the league as somebody who’d been in the league for years. Had his head in the game all the time.

He’d be sitting on the bench and we’re watching the game and Ted would say, “He started the last nine guys off with a curveball.” Constantly studying the pitchers, and the hitters when he was in the outfield. He knew how the pitchers would pitch to batters and position himself.

When I was pitching, he’d play hitters one way, and another way when someone else was pitching. Like Joe DiMaggio – always in the right place; when a line drive was hit, he was right there waiting for it. Made it look easy. No spectacular plays. Some guys would be out of position and had to keep moving, making diving catches. Williams and DiMaggio moved themselves.

The next year I was traded to the St. Louis Browns. One day I’m pitching against the Red Sox. Bob Swift is the catcher. I have a one-run lead in the ninth inning. The leadoff man beats out a bunt. Ted Williams is up next. Swift came out to me and said, “What do you think he’ll be doing?”

I said, “I don’t know. You think they’ll be moving the runner over, playing for a tie? Or let him hit? Let’s just waste a ball on him, keep it away from him and see what he does.”

I was going to throw one outside and see if Williams turns to bunt or what. So I threw the ball low, about six inches off the ground, and outside. And Ted reached out and hit that ball into the center field bleachers like a two iron shot, and it wasn’t over the plate at all.

Game’s over and I’m burned up and I walk down the runway toward the clubhouse – both teams used the same runway -- and he’s down there in the runway waiting for me, laughing like hell. He put out his hand. I said, “Get away from me, you bastard. You just killed me.”

He said, “I saw you and Swift talking. I knew what you were talking about. You were saying, ‘We’ll just waste one outside and see what he’s going to do with it.’ I knew right where you were gonna pitch it. I could see it all the way.” He knew how I pitched and he was thinking right with me, and that’s what made Ted Williams a great hitter.