Sunday September 9th, 2012

Robert Whitmer: Have you ever had the thought of “what if?”  That old thought of what could have been, or even what should have been. Everyone has it and its ok. Some think of a love that was had and lost, others think of opportunities that were available to them that they didn’t take for one reason or another. Don’t feel bad about thinking this way.  It’s human nature to think what could have happened if something else had gone differently. Some people obsess over this and think about it constantly and allow it to take over their lives.  Others just chalk up the so-called missed opportunities as all part of the plan of a supreme being because that is what was meant to happen.  What would have happened had the United States not dropped the atomic bomb on Japan twice?  How long would the conflict have gone on?  Would the U.S. and the Soviet Union have gone into a 50 year cold war?  On the flip side though, how many lives did it save?  If we look at the sports world, what would the basketball years of the 90’s look like had we not had Michael Jordan flying through the sky with his tongue hanging out of his mouth?  What if he did play but it was for the Celtics instead of the Bulls?  How different would the 90’s have been?  Let’s take this to baseball because we all know that’s why you are here.  How would the results have been different if the Red Sox would have had Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter instead of the Yankees?  It is questions like this that keep people like me busy because I get to write articles such as this one.

I like games especially of the “what if” variety and we are going to play this game with Ted Williams. Before we get started though, we will dissect this man as a player and look at the career numbers that he put up.  There are very few people who put up the career numbers that Williams did.  He carries a career average of .344 with 37 home runs and 130 RBIs.  How many players right now would kill for even one season of those numbers let alone career averages? According to www.baseballreference.com he ranks as the 8^th best hitter by the numbers in the history of the game. He only trails the guys that we know only by their last name: Ruth, Mays, Cobb, Hornsby, Wagner, Musial, and Gehrig.  So in order to play this game, we have to establish some general information about Williams. First fact is that he played in 22 active MLB seasons. Second fact is that he missed three seasons due to military service in World War 2.  Now remember that he missed these three seasons in the prime of his career.  He would have been 24, 25, and 26 in these seasons.  Why do I bring this up?  Those three seasons came right after he had probably the most prolific offensive career in the history of the game of baseball.  In one season he scored 135 runs, hit 37 home runs, knocked in 137 while drawing 145 walks.  Oh yeah…  he hit .406 that year with an OPS of 1.287!  Coming off of a season like that one, we can only imagine what he would have done during those following three years. So are you ready to play “what if?” Read the rest of this entry →