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1946 American League
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Shown: MAY: Boston (red) wins fifteen consecutive games. They are unchallenged the remainder of the season. This was Boston's only pennant between 1918 and 1967 and at the time it was attributed to the fact that Boston had the highest percentage of returning players after World War II. These players were also considered to be in the best shape.It's curious how Ted Williams had but this one post-season to exhibit his hitting talents in. There's something about baseball being a team sport which precludes any team from winning the pennant just by buying star players or having a star player such as Ted Williams - although certainly there are examples of high-priced teams that have won there are no guaranteesI think Ted Williams suffered in reaching the post-season despite his bone-crunching batting stats for three reasons: 1) He was terrible defensively: in my opinion he allowed more opponent hits and extra-bases with his terrible glove than he batted, 2) He was an awful personality: a sour, spitting, fan-cursing, finger flipping, prima donna who expected all in his path to kneel before him. As such he was always apart from the team: an "I" amongst men who were not only trying to win the pennant, but men who were looking for something to build their championship aspirations on. 3) With Ted Williams on the roster management never seriously considered that the team was weak. Year-to-year player transactions perenially failed to address the deficiencies of the team.I see many paralells between Ted Williams and Alex Rodriguez today. Alex Rodriguez has the similar monster stats; MVPs; all without the crabbiness of The Splendid Splinter, yet post-season appearances were slight until he became a cog in the deep Yankee machine. All of the "problems" that Ted Williams created for Red Sox championship winners - A-Rod has as well. You'll notice after his first seven years in Seattle he was traded to Texas. In 2001, the first year |