Ted Williams hit .394 in 1941 against teams not the Yankees.

Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Williams is the last batter to qualify for league lead in averages with a batting average (BA) of at least .400.

Williams had his highest BA (.471) against the New York Yankees (101-53-2) who won the American League pennant by 17 games over Boston (84-70-1) and then the World Series in 1941 4-1 over Brooklyn.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=willite01&year=1941&t=b

I	Split	G	GS	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA ▼	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip
	New York Yankees	22	21	92	68	23	32	5	0	2	14	0	2	24	5	.471	.609	.632	1.241	.492
	Philadelphia Athletics	19	18	85	63	19	28	5	0	8	22	0	0	21	1	.444	.588	.905	1.493	.370
	St. Louis Browns	21	18	83	61	17	26	3	0	9	26	1	2	22	4	.426	.578	.918	1.496	.354
	WP >= .500	42	40	178	137	42	58	10	1	9	31	0	2	40	10	.423	.556	.708	1.264	.415
	Cleveland Indians	18	18	82	58	20	24	4	0	3	9	0	0	24	5	.414	.585	.638	1.223	.420
	WP < .500	101	93	428	319	93	127	23	2	28	88	2	2	107	17	.398	.551	.746	1.298	.361
	Washington Nationals	22	18	81	63	16	24	6	1	3	12	0	0	18	3	.381	.519	.651	1.169	.368
	Chicago White Sox	20	19	86	69	19	26	5	1	7	17	0	0	16	5	.377	.500	.783	1.283	.333
	Detroit Tigers	21	21	97	74	21	25	5	1	5	19	1	0	22	4	.338	.495	.635	1.130	.308

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/14/2025.

Ted Williams hit .394 in 1941 against teams not the Yankees. Against the Yankees Williams had his lowest SLG .632 (many singles) and his highest BAbip (Batting Average on balls in play) .492: maybe lucky against the Yankees.  Against teams not the Yankees his BAbip was .321; .115 lower than the .492 against the Yankees.

Ironically, the AL BA against Yankee pitchers was the AL lowest: .248. AL BA: .266.

1941 Yankees pitchers:

Rk	Pos	Name	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W
1	SP	Marius Russo*	26	14	10	.583	3.09	28	27	1	17	3	1	209.2	195	85	72	8	87		105	1	0	3	886	128	3.42	1.345	8.4	0.3	3.7	4.5	1.21
2	SP	Red Ruffing	36	15	6	.714	3.54	23	23	0	13	2	0	185.2	177	87	73	13	54		60	1	0	1	771	112	3.82	1.244	8.6	0.6	2.6	2.9	1.11
3	SP	Spud Chandler	33	10	4	.714	3.19	28	20	5	11	4	4	163.2	146	68	58	5	60		60	0	0	3	682	124	3.43	1.259	8.0	0.3	3.3	3.3	1.00
4	SP	Atley Donald	30	9	5	.643	3.57	22	20	2	10	0	0	159.0	141	69	63	11	69		71	3	0	5	673	111	4.03	1.321	8.0	0.6	3.9	4.0	1.03
5	SP	Lefty Gomez*	32	15	5	.750	3.74	23	23	0	8	2	0	156.1	151	76	65	10	103		76	1	0	5	712	106	4.52	1.625	8.7	0.6	5.9	4.4	0.74
6	SP	Marv Breuer	27	9	7	.563	4.09	26	18	4	7	1	2	141.0	131	73	64	10	49		77	2	1	4	595	97	3.58	1.277	8.4	0.6	3.1	4.9	1.57
Rk	Pos	Name	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W
7	CL	Johnny Murphy	32	8	3	.727	1.98	35	0	31	0	0	15	77.1	68	20	17	1	40		29	0	0	3	333	200	3.63	1.397	7.9	0.1	4.7	3.4	0.73
8	RP	Tiny Bonham	27	9	6	.600	2.98	23	14	5	7	1	2	126.2	118	44	42	12	31		43	1	0	0	518	132	3.97	1.176	8.4	0.9	2.2	3.1	1.39
9	RP	Steve Peek	26	4	2	.667	5.06	17	8	2	2	0	0	80.0	85	48	45	6	39		18	0	0	1	350	78	4.65	1.550	9.6	0.7	4.4	2.0	0.46
10	RP	Charley Stanceu	25	3	3	.500	5.63	22	2	9	0	0	0	48.0	58	41	30	3	35		21	1	0	1	241	71	4.85	1.938	10.9	0.6	6.6	3.9	0.60
11	RP	Norm Branch	26	5	1	.833	2.87	27	0	22	0	0	2	47.0	37	16	15	2	26		28	0	0	2	195	138	3.68	1.340	7.1	0.4	5.0	5.4	1.08
Rk	Pos	Name	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W
12		George Washburn	26	0	1	.000	13.50	1	1	0	0	0	0	2.0	2	4	3	0	5		1	0	0	1	12	35	9.16	3.500	9.0	0.0	22.5	4.5	0.20
		Team Totals	29.8	101	53	.656	3.53	156	156	81	75	13	26	1396.1	1309	631	547	81	598		589	10	1	29	5968	112	3.88	1.366	8.4	0.5	3.9	3.8	0.98
		Rank in 8 AL teams		1	8		2				2	2	1	2	1	1	1	4	4		3
Rk	Pos	Name	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/14/2016.

1941 Yankee pitchers against Ted Williams:

Name	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Marius Russo	12	12	7	1	0	0	2	0	2	.583	.583	.667	1.250
Red Ruffing
Spud Chandler	14	10	5	0	0	0	3	4	2	.500	.643	.500	1.143
Atley Donald	7	3	2	1	0	0	0	4	0	.667	.857	1.000	1.857
Lefty Gomez	18	14	10	2	0	1	3	4	0	.714	.778	1.071	1.849
Marv Breuer	14	9	1	0	0	0	2	5	1	.111	.429	.111	.540
Johnny Murphy	4	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	.000	.500	.000	.500
Tiny Bonham	11	9	3	0	0	1	2	2	0	.333	.455	.667	1.121
Steve Peek	3	3	2	1	0	0	1	0	0	.667	.667	1.000	1.667
Charley Stanceu	6	3	2	0	0	0	1	3	0	.667	.833	.667	1.500
Norm Branch	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
George Washburn
Total	92	68	32	5	0	2	14	24	5	.471
GS	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
21	92	68	32	5	0	2	14	24	5	.471	.609	.632	1.241

As you can see the biggest culprit was Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez (See link to new post below 3/16/2025.). The other 1941 Yankee Hall of Fame pitcher was Red Ruffing who did not pitch against the second place Red Sox (84-70) that season. Ruffing did pitch against Boston in 1940 and 1942. It may have been an oddity of scheduling. Ruffing started game one of the World Series far more often than Gomez and that was true in 1941 against the Brooklyn Dodgers.


Williams BA:
home: .428
road: .380

His BA against the Yankees was over .400 both home and road.

Lefty Gomez made Ted Williams a .400 hitter in 1941. Sunday, March 16, 2025

Ted Williams: the mythology of the final games of 1941. Thursday, October 13, 2011