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When .400 -- And History -- Was Within Reach

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Posted: Wednesday July 21, 1999 07:40 PM

Brett watched his average rise 150 points -- from .247 to .397 -- between May 21 and late August. Ronald C. Modra

By Ron Fimrite

There were two outs and no one on when Kansas City's George Brett came to bat in the sixth inning of last Saturday night's game between the Royals and the Cleveland Indians. Brett assumed his lefthanded stance; feet spread and body bent at the waist, left leg bent and right leg extended toward the mound. While resting his bat on his left shoulder, he peeked at the pitcher over his right shoulder. Pitching for Cleveland was Wayne Garland, who finally seems to be making a successful comeback from the shoulder injury that has perennially jeopardized his once-promising career.

Before the game, Garland had described what a pitcher must do to thwart a hitter of Brett's incalculabe skills. "You have to try to keep him off balance," he said. "You have to change speeds on him, maintain supreme concentration. Of course, that is easier said than done. A bad night for him is 2 for 5." Still, Garland got Brett to fly out and pop up in two previous at bats, and now, pitching cautiously, he induced him to hit a three-balls-no-strikes breaking ball to the right side of the infield, where first baseman Mike Hargrove fielded it and tossed to Garland, covering first, for the out.

An unusual thing happened after that: the near-capacity crowd of 40,192 at Royals Stadium emitted, as one person, a long, loud, anguished groan. Why the great sorrow? The situation was far from hopeless. The Royals were only trailing 2-1, and they would, in fact, eventually win the game 3-2. No, the fans were in mourning because Brett, a .400 hitter before that time at bat, had just become a .399 hitter. And of all the magic numbers in baseball's statistical pantheon -- 30 wins, 300 strikeouts, 60 homers -- the .400 batting average has become the least attainable. The last man to hit for that celestial average was Ted Williams in 1941, and though his career abounds with magnificent achievements, that long-ago .406 average survives as his most memorable claim to everlasting fame.

Brett, the effusive Kansas City third baseman, has revived .400 fever across the land. In his own city, BRETT FOR PRESIDENT bumper stickers are appearing, and KMBZ, the radio station that broadcasts Royals games, is advertising itself as "The Home of George Brett Excitement." The Royals' front office receives upwards of 40 calls a day requesting information on Brett's progress or for audiences with the great man. The nation at large has not experienced one of these .400 epidemics since 1977, when Rod Carew, then of the Minnesota Twins, kept his average in range over the last two months of the season. But Carew's highest average from Aug. 20 to the last day of that season was the one he finished with -- .388. Brett is a much more likely candidate for inclusion in the .400 circle. After going 1-for-4 on Sunday he was at .397 with 38 games to go.

Until Garland did him in he had been a .400 hitter for six days, climbing as high as Williams' .406 last Wednesday. For that matter, he has been a .452 hitter since May 21, when his average was a disreputable .247. In those amazing three months he has hit in all but five of 62 games, while slugging 14 homers and driving in 74 runs. From the All-Star break through last Sunday, he had an average of .455 and had hit in 41 of 44 games. And from July 18 through Aug 18, he hit in 30 consecutive games. His average for the streak was .467 (57 for 122). Although he has missed 35 games this season because of injuries, Brett is in the American League Top 10 in nine offensive categories and is the leader in batting, on-base percentage and slugging. Through Sunday he had 91 runs batted in in 890 games, figures that put him within reach of another unusual accomplishment. Boston's Walt Dropo was the last hitter to finish a season with more RBIs (100 minimum) than games played -- 144 to 136 in 1950. Brett is having what might be considered a big season.

"I have seen people hit the way he has for 10 to 15 games at a time," says his manager, Jim Frey, "but never have I seen anyone do it night after night, time after time, against all kinds of pitching. It's incredible. Hit .400? Hell he might he .420."

The odds against anyone hitting .400 today are astronomical. With the disclaimer that there is no way to measure those odds scientifically because of the unreliability of the human factor, the Elias Spots Bureau estimates that before a season starts the chances of a career .300 hitter reaching .400 in 600 times at bat is one in 1,919,940,000,000,000. Long odds, to be sure. Brett's own chances at the start of the season, based on his career average of .310, were one in 87,629 for 500 at bats and one in 590,927 in 600 at bats. Interestingly, when the season ends, Brett should have almost exactly 500 at bats compared with the 645 he had last year, when he hit .329. So by missing so many games he has probably helped his chances. Now, given the way he has been going and with only a little more than a month of the season remaining, he has, by Elias' computations, a 70% chance to make it.

Brett is no shrinking violet, but he advises caution in assessing his chances, arguing that "it's only August" and "there's a long way to go." this is not to say that he doesn't entertain the thought, envisioning himself taking his place alongside the eight hitters who have reached .400 13 times since 1900. Men like Williams, Hornsby, Heilmann, Sisler and Cobb. "It would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing," he said. "I'd like to do it. I'm just going to try to stay up there as long as I can and hope I'm still there at the end of the season."

Issue date: September 1, 1980

 

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