Ted's Army: The Voice of Red Sox fans

It's Boston Day with Andy Gray

Sports Illustrated's Andy Gray (@si_vault) is tweeting all Boston-themed photos for the day.  And he's bringing the heat, including this one here: an ariel view of Ted William's perfect swing. 

Not only is the picture amazing, it's pretty much tailored made to be your next iPhone wallpaper.

He's just getting started so keep a tab open in your browser to check out the photographs. 

If you're not following Andy Gray (@si_vault) on Twitter, why don't you step away from the computer, find a mirror, give yourself a long hard look, ponder your life choices, then come back.

Done?

The good news is, it's not too late to fix this wrong.  Stop disappointing the rest of us and go follow him.  It's that simple.  For those of you anti-Twittites, just bookmark this: https://twitter.com/si_vault

Problem solved!

All on the same page now?  Great.  My work here is done.  Carry on with the rest of the your day.

Remembering Ted Williams as a Marine Pilot

I understand that Veterans Day was yesterday, but it is observed today, so this post is still fitting. Ted's Army reader Kevin S. brought this article to our attention a couple months ago. An remembering Ted Williams as a Marine Fighter Pilot, written by a former Marine. There is a lot of talk of Ted's baseball career as well.

Full article via Leatherneck

United States Marine ground crewmen at Suwon's K-13 Airbase in Korea were alerted that trouble was afoot when they noticed the crash, fire and rescue crews hurriedly manning their emergency vehicles on 16 Feb. 1953. The source of that trouble quickly became apparent when a Marine fighter plane appeared on the horizon.

The midnight-blue F9F "Panther" jet was coming in "heavy" and very fast. Its sluggish movements, trailing smoke and streaming 30-foot ribbon of fire all indicated serious danger. The pilot obviously was having difficulty controlling his aircraft, but he was too low to eject. His only course, therefore, was to try to bring his crippled aircraft in.

An already tense situation became worse when an explosion rocked the undercarriage as the plane approached the airstrip. The stubby fighter plane made a wheels-up "belly" landing, skidding along the tarmac with sparks flying for almost a mile before coming to a stop. The nose promptly burst into flames that threatened the cockpit. The trapped aviator blew off the canopy, struggled out of the plane and limped away, hitting the ground in a less-than-perfect baseball slide.

The plane was a total wreck, but the fortunate pilot suffered only minor scrapes. Later, the airmen at Suwon learned they had witnessed the dramatic escape of the most famous flying leatherneck in Korea; that lucky pilot was none other than Ted Williams, a star professional baseball player who was serving as a Marine reservist.

This Article is quite dated, but still a good read if you have a few minutes to spare.

The sweet swing of Ted Williams

This great shot comes courtesy of Andy Gray, who runs the @SI_Vault Twitter feed. An absolute must-follow if you somehow read this blog, use Twitter, and don't already follow him. Great shots all the time.

I'm sure later this afternoon he'll have "The sweet swing of Jose Iglesias."

Jose Reyes allows us to fondly remember Teddy Ballgame

This here site is named after Ted Williams, you may have noticed, and for good reason: He's one of the all-time greats. Baseball-Reference's EloRater (constantly adjusting for what people think of ballplayers based on head-to-head votes) has him as the 2nd greatest of all-time behind Babe Ruth. His numbers are gaudy. My grandpa, a huge Yankees fan who saw Ruth, Gehrig, and Dimaggio in person, even admits that Ted was the best he's ever seen.

And here's another reason Ted is the man: He didn't beg out of games to preserve personal records like Jose Reyes did today.

Reyes, in the lead for the National League batting crown, delivered a bunt single to lead off the bottom of the first inning of the Mets' 3-0 win over the Reds. He then was pulled asNew York Mets manager Terry Collins adhered to the shortstop's request to be removed if he singled. Some fans booed after realizing Collins had sent Justin Turner to pinch-run for Reyes.

Reyes, bidding to become the first player in franchise history to win a batting title, finishes the season with 181 hits in 537 at-bats (.3371 average).

[...]

"I said, 'If I go 1-for-1, take me out of the game,'" Reyes said. "And I did that. If I went 0-for-1, maybe I'm still in the game until I get a hit."

If you're not familiar with the story about Williams, in his .406 season he entered the final day on .400 on the nose. I'll let that same ESPN story take it from there:

The decision to pull Reyes comes on the 70th anniversary of Ted Williams deciding to play in a doubleheader on the final day of the regular season in 1941 even though his .39955 average would have been rounded up to .400.

"If I'm going to be a .400 hitter, I'm going to be a .400 hitter all the way," Williams was quoted as saying at the time.

Williams went 6-for-8 in the twin bill to up his average to .406.

Atta boy, Teddy.

The sad thing is, this will probably end up helping Reyes make even more money this offseason. Unless Ryan Braun has a huge night and overtakes him, Reyes' agent will be able to use "batting title winner" in negotiations, and you just know some dumb GM will fall for it and fork over Crawford money. 

Let's just hope it's not Theo.

Breaking News: Ted Williams was kinda awesome

(Brearley Collection Photo from Opening Day 1947)

Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski -- Decent writer.  Maybe you've heard of him? -- has an article at SI.com detailing, mathematically, how improbable it was for Dan Uggla to go on his 33-game hitting streak.  Spoiler Alert: pretty unlikely!  In fact, using his equation Posnanski determined that the odds of Uggla's hitting streak were more than 3 million to 1 against.

In that same article, he writes that many people have asked him whether Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak was statistically less likely than Teddy Ballgame's 84-game on-base streak.

Williams reached base 84 straight games in 1949. He also reached base in every game from July 20, 1941, to the end of the season. That guy was pretty good at getting on base.

So to figure the 84-game on-base streak … one more time, we need to figure out the odds of Williams reaching base in a game. Well, I’m going to tell you something amazing. Between 1939 and 1958, that’s 20 years, Ted Williams played in 1,980 games in which he got at least three plate appearances. Almost 2,000 games. Do you know how many times he did not reach base? Go ahead. Take a guess.

Wrong. The answer: 139.

Yeah. That’s 139. The man reached base in NINETY THREE PERCENT of the games when he got at least three plate appearances. The chances of Ted Williams reaching base in a game was higher than Rick Barry’s free-throw percentage.

So.... wow!  You don't need to have been around to witness the Ted Williams era to know just how great he was.  But every once in a while you'll hear a story about Williams or see a statistic that just blows your mind.  This is one of those times. 

Still, DiMaggio has Teddy beat in the "improbable" category.

DiMaggio odds of 56 straight hits was about 82,000 to 1.

Williams odds of 84 straight games reaching base: About 406 to 1.

Quite a difference there. But, this doesn’t necessarily mean that DiMaggio’s streak is more impressive. It really means that Ted Williams was incredibly awesome at getting on base. The odds of DiMaggio going on that 84-game on-base streak — as great as he was — were more than 23,000 to 1.

Even more impressive, Williams' streak came in 1949, not 1941 when he hit .406 and had an OBP of .553.  In '49 he only hit .343 with an OBP of .490.  Yikes, that guy was good.