Quote Originally Posted by VTCC'65 View Post
This post reminds me of when Ted first became manager of a MLB team, I forget which one it was but to sell magazines, Sports Illustrated ran a multi-week special series about Ted's technique for hitting. The article went into great detail and I supposed that people thought they could learn to hit better IF they read the article. If I recall, his MLB team did not excell in hitting and his career as manager was short lived. Either you can hit or you can't. Reading books or magazines about hitting is only entertaining but hoey when it comes to hitting the old screwball.
Ted Williaqms managed the old Washington Senators, which previously had been a bad team and he turned them around but its owner named Bob Short sold off the players and then sold the team to Dallas.

Ted's team hitting improved significantly and one of his projects, I can't remember his name, a big guy who played previously for the Dodgers and hit home runs w/ poor percentage and an easy out, Ted turned him around and he became a fan draw and they would paint the seats white in the upper deck at RFK. He credited Williams with turning his hitting around. 7 of the players traded ended up the following year paying on playoff gteams. Ted got disgusted and did not follow to team to Dallas.

Ted's book discusses why he never swung at the first pitch, which sounds counter intuitive, until you understand that he argued that he wanted to see the ball clearly the first pitch, what does the pitcher have that day, and more importantly whether it was a ball or strike he had a better idea what the next pitch was probably going to be, and that's all the advantage a hitter wants. Most great hitters including Hank Aaron are situation/guess hitters.

You are right a book will not make you a better hitter, that's God given, but you better know what you are doing when you step into the batter's box, and not be a "hacker" and that's what I saw a lot of this past weekend.