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To: altair19 who wrote (72306)	7/21/2008 12:46:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 104155

;-)

To: altair19 who wrote (72306)	7/21/2008 4:36:51 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 104155

Tony Gwynn believes .400 average possible; other Hall of Famers disagree canadianpress.google.com <<...Tony Gwynn laughs when he thinks back to a conversation he had with Ted Williams back in 1995. The sweet-swinging longtime San Diego Padres outfielder was still coming to terms with his aborted run at batting .400 during the strike-shortened 1994 season - he was carrying a .394 average when the players walked out on Aug. 12 - and he was asking the Boston Red Sox great if he had found it tough chasing one of baseball's most formidable marks. "Ted said, 'If I knew hitting .400 was such a big deal, I would have done it more often,"' Gwynn recalls during a recent interview. "I laughed and then I thought about it. In 1930, Bill Terry hit .401 and so in '41, when Williams hit .406, it had been done pretty recently. "Whoever goes after it now, the scrutiny is going to be unbelievable." Of that there is no doubt. It has been 67 years since Williams reached that elusive plateau and Chipper Jones' flirtation with it this season - he hit .400 into mid-June but takes a .373 average into Monday's play - has only reinforced how difficult chasing it will be. Jones didn't even get into mid-August like Gwynn or to Aug. 2 the way former Toronto Blue Jays first baseman John Olerud did in 1993 (he ended up winning a batting title at .363), and buzz was already starting to build before injuries set him back. That type of attention wasn't there when Gwynn and Olerud had their fine seasons, or when George Brett batted .390 in 1980 and Rod Carew hit .388 in 1977. That's why Hall of Famers like Paul Molitor, Wade Boggs and Al Kaline think Williams is likely to be the last man to bat .400 in the majors. "I saw John Olerud hit .400 until August, I saw George Brett and Carew do it, I don't know how anyone is going to do better than those guys," says Molitor, the longtime Milwaukee Brewer and Olerud's teammate in '93. "If ever anyone approached it, to me it would be if a guy had some injuries, maybe barely qualified (a player needs a minimum of 502 plate appearances to win a batting title), and somehow got hot right at the end to push him over." Boggs, who won five batting titles with the Red Sox, agrees and believes the specialization of pitching is another factor to consider. That, combined with the burden of chasing the mark, leads him to think it won't happen again. "From May of 1985 to May of 1986, over 162 games, I hit .408, but I didn't do it in one season," he says. "It was always in the back of my mind. The pressure would be unbelievable because you'd be holding press conferences every day talking about it. "It would be a distraction and I don't foresee anyone doing it." Kaline, the great Detroit Tigers outfielder, was six when Williams batted .406 and remembers being awed by the Splendid Splinter's prowess at the plate when he made it to the majors in 1953. While some argue that Williams was the greatest hitter ever with his combination of power, plate coverage and discipline, Kaline thinks a different breed of player will be the one to get it done now, in part because of the specialization of pitching. "If it were to happen, it would have to be some switch-hitter who can really run, a guy like Ichiro (Suzuki) if he were a switch-hitter, it would have to be a speed guy who beat out a lot of infield hits," says Kaline. "Ted Williams was the best pure hitter I've ever seen play. He had such a great swing, great strike zone, knowledge of the game, he didn't make a lot of outs by swinging at bad pitches. "It (1941) was an unusual year and I don't think we'll see the likes of that again." Gwynn is the sole optimist of the bunch. "Out of all the marks that are out there," he says, "that's the one I feel like someone sooner or later is going to do." It might have been Gwynn back in '94 if labour woes hadn't gotten in the way. He remembers the pressure starting to build around him but with the threat of a strike hanging over the season, his run was obscured. Doing it now is a whole different animal. "September is going to be ungodly for whoever makes a run at .400, because every day you're going to have to talk about starters, how you feel," says Gwynn. "It's going to take a strong guy mentally to get it done because it's tough enough just going out on the field and doing it on a daily basis. Having to answer the same questions over and over again, mentally that wears on you a little bit. "I never got to that point. I didn't get the chance."...>>