Mike O'Connell

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ted Williams. The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived.

Teddy Ballgame. The Splendid Splinter.

The Kid.

There simply was no other like Ted Williams. Hitting savant, pilot, war hero, fly fishing guru. This guy could do it all.

Except play defense, but nobody was tracking those things in Ted’s day.

Speaking of stats…

My tweet yesterday from @MOCmathclass suggests that one peruse baseball-reference.com and just marvel at the stats complied by Mr. Williams. Yeah, take a minute and do that. I’ll be right here.

That’s for the left side of the brain. If you want to be entertained, head to Spotify or Amazon and check out The Baseball Project’s little ditty about The Kid. The name Ted Williams is in there, and there may be a four-letter word in there too. It was a little much for Twitter, but here we don’t judge.

Was Ted kind of a jerk in real life?

Maybe. And I’m guessing he didn’t really care.

From what I understand he really just wanted one thing. That when he walked by, someone would say…

There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.

Yup.

My hometown Washington Nationals in 2018 have been pretty hit and miss (I mean that in every sense of the word).

The season looked so promising at the outset, followed by a much more sluggish reality with glimmers of hope here and there.

They let go a few of their star players, then somehow pick up a couple great wins.

They get shut out three games in a row, then explode for 15 runs (14 in two innings!) the next day.

This is why you don’t try to predict baseball.

And definitely don’t bet on it.

Let the record show that following the Nationals’ fire sale yesterday afternoon I am still here, “employed” as their loyal fan but frequent criticizer.

Yup, that’s me.

And I’m still here.

And same salary as before.

With their loss last night the New York Yankees fell 10 1/2 games back of the AL East-leading Boston Red Sox. Nothing to be ashamed of, really. The Yankees still have the second-best record in baseball. That’s right. The Red Sox are 10 1/2 games up on the world right now at 86-36.

Know what they’d be if they played in the NL West? Twenty and a half games up. On second place.

The best record in the NL actually belongs to the Chicago Cubs at 70-50. That’s 15 games back of the Red Sox. Say the Sox played .500 the rest of the way. For the Cubs to top them for best record in MLB they’d have to go 37-5 during that span.

For reference, the 1951 Giants went 37-7.

Dear Sports Gods,

Thank you for providing me and a certain Mr. Woods a few moments of rekindled youth yesterday afternoon at the PGA Championship. Tiger’s second-place finish following his lowest score ever on a major championship Sunday gives me hope that yes, one day I might actually see this man win another major.

Wow.

Less cool was the moment five hours later when my hometown Washington Nationals turned in a “second-place” finish of their own at Wrigley Field.

Seriously? Down three and down to your last strike? Bases loaded? And the batter hits a grand slam? That doesn’t really happen, right? That’s just the scenario you make up in the backyard as a kid, not something that actually occurs in real life.

Thanks, sports gods. Thanks.