Ted Williams hit .394 in 1941 against teams not the Yankees. Monday, August 15, 2016
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.
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Ted Williams is being used as an example, in part, because he and his .406 batting average (BA) in 1941 are not trivial.
That post above is pretty interesting but are the numbers correct? Why ask?
Ted Williams 1941 .406 season is missing 84 plate appearances. Thursday, July 18, 2019
Ted Williams had a batting average (BA) of .406 in 1941. It is not a record for average stats that qualify for leading the league but it is the most recent and probably last .400 BA. Williams' data in baseball-reference.com is missing 84 of his plate appearances (PA)...
522 Plate Appearances (PA) v. 606. That's a difference of 84 PA.
The is no indication of which games are missing in the resulting (Event Finder) list...
So sure enough, that home run (in the Home Run Log) is in a game that is completely missing in the Event Finder list. But what about PA which did not result in Ted Williams hitting a home run? We have no idea about them...
vs. Pitcher
Let's limit that to 1941:
If we click that link (for pitcher Alex Carrasquel) we get all career PA between the two. Or do we? ...
Batter vs. Pitcher Data is complete back to 1974 and mostly complete back to 1925. Data runs from 1925 to 2019 for regular season data, 1933-Present for the All-Star Game, and 1903-Present for the Postseason.
Only one game in 1941 (for pitcher Alex Carrasquel):
But wait. In the Home Run Log for Williams: ...
Williams hit two home runs 1941-09-01 (1). The Washington pitchers Carrasquel and Zuber allowed one home run each. But there is no play-by-play.
Let's look for the game in retrosheet.org...
Boston Red Sox 13, Washington Senators 9 (1)
Game Played on Monday, September 1, 1941 (D) at Fenway Park
"Play by play events deduced from newspaper accounts. Fielding credits from box score event files."
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1941/B09011BOS1941.htm
HR: Williams 2 (33,5th inning off Carrasquel 0 on 0 out,8th inning off Zuber 1 on 1 out)...
unknown play Ah, that's the reason for the disconnect. Most, but not all, plays are known.
Is there a practical way to get the details?
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/W/Pwillt103.htm
The Ted Williams page at retrosheet.org lacks the rich set of options present in baseball-reference.com.
retrosheet.org does include Pitcher Matchups. Alex Carrasquel is listed ... and with two home runs allowed to Ted Williams...
https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?batter=willite01&pitcher=carraal0
Ted Williams vs. Alex Carrasquel
baseball-reference.com does show three missG for 1941. We only found the one in which Williams homered off Carrasquel.
Argh.
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missG? That suddenly popped up. baseball-reference.com defines it as the number of games where both the pitcher and batter played in a game for which play-by-play is missing or incomplete.
What about Ted Williams "1941 Batting Game Log"? Surprise! It's got all 606 PA, including game level (NOT play-by-play) data for that 1941-09-01 (1) against Alex Carrasquel. It shows Williams with:
5 PA
2 for 3
2 BB
2 HR
Here's the link for that game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS194109011.shtml
HR: Ted Williams 2 (33).
| Pitching | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | BF | GSc | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Carrasquel | 5 | 11 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3.52 | 27 | 19 |
| Vern Kennedy | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5.17 | 2 | |
| Bill Zuber, L (2-4) | 2.1 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.90 | 13 | |
| Walt Masterson | 0.2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6.60 | 5 | |
| Team Totals | 8 | 18 | 13 | 13 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 14.62 | 47 | 19 |
But no play-by-play and no specifics on the two home runs Williams hit. Those specifics are, of course, over in the good old Home Run Log. However, had Williams not hit home runs, we'd need to look at the derived play-by-play data in retrosheet.org for that specific game. Certainly doable for a few games but not for lots of games.
Which brings us back to the topic at the top of this post: Are the summary numbers at the team level correct? That will be addressed in the next post:
Ted Williams 1941 .406 BA stats: play-by-play v. game. 4:05 PM
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