The OP didn’t say anything about loving what you’re doing. It didn’t say anything about being able to give your team a shot at the championship. It simply said you could retire now and have one record, or keep playing and try to reach another, at the risk of losing the one you already have.
Given the original question, I’ll stay with my original answer. If someone wants to modify the question, I’ll consider modifying my answer.
And I’m convinced. Good explanations from both of you, and good reasoning. I forgot he was playing first.
Wade Boggs is my new hero.
Not so much.
If I’m a manager and I’ve got one guy who’s hitting .350+ with singles and doubles, and a guy who’s hitting .260 - .280 with 40+ homers a year…give me the .350 guy. You can’t score without runners on base.
Give me both of them in the 3 and 4 slots, though, and I’ll be making a serious pennant run if the rest of the team holds up.
Sure you can. That is the entire point of home-runs.
Nowhere near as much. A team with a solid .350 on base percentage and moderate home run power will outscore the living heck out of a team with an OBP of .310 and great power.
Sure, the latter team will put up a bunch of one run innings and that’s great! But the other team will have the carousel offense going with crooked number runs popping up fairly often.
.298 for the last three years? Assuming 550 AB’s, that’s 164 hits a year, so I retire 3 years ago when I was 3638/9572-a lifetime average of .380-and laugh maniacally at the poor sons of bitches who have to follow that.
In 1941 Ted Williams went into the last day with a 400 batting average. He was told he could sit out and be a 400 hitter. He played a double header , had a big day and wound up at 406. Who couldn’t love that. /
I’d play until someone beat me out of the job. I’d rather have someone say I stuck around and helped win a World Series and sacrificed the Cobb record doing so than having them say I gave up on the team just to hang onto a personal record.
I suspect if Teddy Ballgame took an oh-fer, he’d be known for the last 67 summers as the biggest asshole who ever lived.
Wha?
TSW went into that double-header at .39955, a technical .400 in those days, so his playing should be viewed as lending integrity to the game and his accomplishment. He hit .406 in 1941; he didn’t hit thisfreakingclose to .400 and sit out the last two games and let the number crunchers give him that last .00005 of a point. You have to respect the man for earning it instead of taking the chickenshit way out.
BTW-Sacrifice flies counted as outs in 1941 (whereas today they are considered a wash, much like a walk or HBP). Williams’ manager estimated that he had at least a dozen sac flies that year and if these AB’s were discounted his average would have been .419(!).
What part of my post confused you? Instead of praising his guts, his pride, his clutch ability, we’d all be exchanging jokes about what a total bone-head it was to play that game, if he’d taken a collar. “Stupid schmuck woulda had a .400 average, rounding up, but now he’s just another Brett or Gwynn or Carew close-but-no-cigar. Gawd, what a dweeb he was!! Dumb asshole prolly din’t even understand what he was risking. Haw, haw, haw” and on into the night…
What part of my post confused you? Instead of praising his guts, his pride, his clutch ability, we’d all be exchanging jokes about what a total bone-head it was to play that game, if he’d taken a collar. “Stupid schmuck woulda had a .400 average, rounding up, but now he’s just another Brett or Gwynn or Carew close-but-no-cigar. Gawd, what a dweeb he was!! Dumb asshole prolly din’t even understand what he was risking. Haw, haw, haw” and on into the night…
Apparently the part where exhibiting some integrity makes one an object of derision.
Hey, I’m a big Williams fan! But the derisive abuse fans heap on players, especially my favorites, is simply a fact of life. Are you seriously saying that if Williams had taken a collar, he WOULDN"T be ridiculed mercilessly? If so, I disagree.
I disagree. Perhaps you would have mocked him mercilessly. Ted was known as a big asshole anyway; it might have helped his reputation had he gone ohfor.
As I recall, the writers of the day were questioning his sanity when it was announced he would play that day. So I think he would have been famously derided if he had an 0 for 4 or any day that dropped him below .3995.
Instead, much like his final game*, he did something that added to his legend.
Ted Williams was a Red Sox so he not one of my beloved players, but he is more of a true hero than most baseball stars. He was an ace in two wars and considered by no less than John Glenn one of the greatest fighter pilots in our history. On top of that he a world class fisherman and highly respected among that select group.
Jim
Me? No, I’d defend Ted if he tried to have carnal knowledge of a chicken out in left field during an All-Star game. But players on the verge of greatness who come up short in American sports dont usually get a warm and fuzzy reaction from fans. Take Babe Ruth getting thrown out trying to steal a base to end a World Series–do people say “Man, what boldness, what verve, what elan! He went for the gusto, gave it a great try, almost pulled off a fantastic play, he’s my hero…”? No, we go, “Bonehead play! Dumbass! WTF was he thinking?!” etc.
That’s just how it be’s. I dont make the rules, I just report them.
I needed to try that again, I was two wases short.
The difference being that Ruth’s stupidity cost his TEAM. It was a loser play. Williams being gutsy cost his team nothing.
There’s no way Williams would have been begrudged his decision had he fallen short of .400. Indeed, to this day he’d be admired for it.