I’ve always known about the Williams shift, but am reading the Leigh Montville biography “Portrait of an American Hero” which got me wondering about something. First, background…
Ted Williams, who played from 1939 to 1960 for the Boston Red Sox, is considered by many the greatest hitter who ever lived. He was the last player to bat .400 for a season, and had an incomparable blend of power and average. He batted left-handed, with a very pronounced ‘pull’; i.e., he usually hit to the right side of the field.
For this reason, opposing teams began employing the so-called “Williams shift”. First devised by Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau, it consisted of moving the fielders to the right. With more fielders in the part of the field where Williams usually hit, the chance that he would hit between the fielders was reduced.
The risk for the fielding team was that if Williams did hit to the left, it would be harder to field. If he bunted, he was pretty much guaranteed to get on base safely. But he had less power to the opposite (left) field.
I haven’t reached the part of the book that dealt with his decision yet, but I remember reading a long time ago that he consciously decided to continue hitting for power, even if more of his hits would get fielded. He supposedly concluded that the additional hits fielded by the shift were not as great a loss as the reduction in power he would have undergone hitting to right field. As shrewd and analytical as Williams was, I can accept this calculation.
But I am curious as to why it had to be one or the other (all power to right, no power to left). If Williams bunted successfully in his first two at-bats, I would imagine the shift might move back to their standard potitions for his third at-bat. At which time he could swing for the fences.
Was there some reason Williams couldn’t employ this kind of cat-and-mouse strategy?
He was known to be stubborn, defiant, and insanely gutsy. So I could understand him thinking that such a strategy was somehow ‘weak’ or sneaky. But all’s fair in baseball: Williams studied pitchers and developed strategies with the best of them. Fooling the fielders seems like another such strategy. If it worked, I figure he would have done it.
Would his stance give away his intentions? If so, I’d think it would be hard for the fielders to change positions quickly enough. Someone like Ty Cobb would have driven them crazy, practicing looking like he was going to hit left and then hitting to right (and vice versa).