Today, August 30th, was the birthday of Ted Williams. Now I will let the rest of you talk about all of the Biographies available of The Splendid Splinter. I just want to talk a bit about his book on hitting The Science of Hitting by Ted with John Underwood. I remember this book from when I was younger and while it was over my head at that time, I have chewed on it since then and have a couple of questions to ask. If you will take a look at the photo of Ted in the batters box with the chart of balls in his strike zone you will note that the grey balls in the lower outside of his strike zone are balls he believes he cannot hit with any authority. Even if he does connect with pitches in this zone, over time he will produce a low batting average with little power. So the pitcher will of course try to hit this part of the plate as often as possible. My observation is that this is also the part of the strike zone is the section which give the umpire the most trouble. The ump is set up over the catchers right shoulder, eye level with the top of the strike zone (at least how I was taught). He gets the worst view of pitches down and away. The batter has the most trouble with these pitches as well. My question is - why dont umpires set up on the other should of the catcher so they can at least see if the ball is over the plate? They may still have some difficulty determining if it is out of the strike zone low but they will have a better look at this, the most critical part of the strike zone. Just a thought. And who remembers Biggio diving after anything low and outside? In the dirt, on the bounce, it seemed like if the pitcher could get the ball low and away he had Biggio.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 06:11:11 +0000
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