A Real Rap Session Wade Boggs, Ted Williams and Don Mattingly
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A Real Rap Session Wade Boggs, Ted Williams and Don Mattingly rendezvous to talk about -- what else? -- hitting. With Peter Gammons Issue date: April 14, 1986 Ted Williams and Wade Boggs had been talking nonstop from the time they left Winter Haven, Fla. 70 minutes earlier. The two batting champions were on their way to a rendezvous with yet another, Don Mattingly, when Williams, in the backseat, posed a question to Boggs, who was in the front. "Have you ever smelled the smoke from the wood of your bat burning?" asked Williams in a voice not unlike that of John Wayne. "Whaaat?" said Boggs. "The smell of the smoke from the wood burning?" "What are talking about Ted? I don't understand." Five of six times, hitting against a guy with good stuff, I swung hard and -- oomph -- just fouled it back. Really hit it hard. And I smelled the wood of the bat burning. It must have been that the seams hit the bat just right, and the friction caused it to burn, but it happened five of six times." Boggs shook his head. "Awesome." Five minutes later the pair of Red Sox sat down at Tio Pepe, a Clearwater restaurant popular among baseball people, for a dinner arranged by Peter Gammons of SI. Mattingly soon arrived from the Yankees' afternoon game in Sarasota -- "Nice to meet you, Mr. Williams," he said -- and for the next 2 1/2 hours, three great lefthanded batters talked hitting. Before we listen in, it should be explained that Williams, who still instructs the Red Sox in hitting during spring training, has long held the belief that the theories of the late Charley Lau "may have set hitting back 25 years." Williams's The Science of Hitting, which remains a classic work on batting, stresses the discipline of the hips, while Lau's The Art Of Hitting .300 teaches the discipline of the head and the importance of shifting weight. What was particularly galling to Williams was the fact that Lau's leading disciple, Red Sox hitting coach Walt Hriniak, was practicing nearby under his very nose. Hriniak is Boggs's mentor, while Mattingly's teacher is Lou Pinella, who learned from Lau in Kansas City. So in rounding up the three men for both dinner and discussion, Gammons brought together two apparently different philosophies. Yet the three ended up agreeing on the fundamentals of hitting. Be forewarned that some of the technical debate in the beginning may be, like a Ryne Duren fastball, over the head. But the three proved worth listening to. As they conversed, players and coaches from other teams came up to the private dining room to eavesdrop. WILLIAMS: Don, I haven't had the opportunity to watch you and the Yankees as much as I would have liked in the last year or so. But I'm impressed, very impressed. That [Mike] Pagliarulo looks like a good young hitter. MATTINGLY: He's getting better. He's learning, it seems like more and more. He's trying that weight- shift thing, and getting back seems to help. WILLIAMS: What do you mean? Tell me about the weight shift. MATTINGLY: Just transferring from back to forward. It has helped me a lot. When I was in the middle of my body and my head was in the middle of my body, I was always right here. [He puts his hands tight to the middle of his body.] I was always inside-outing the ball, and I was popping up the ball away. So when I went here [leaning on his back foot], then went to there [striding forward], I got on top of the ball more, and I could pull the ball inside. It allowed some kind of freedom. I think you don't agree with me. WILLIAMS: I don't think what you're telling me is right. My impression is that, even with all your success, you don't really realize what you're doing. MATTINGLY: I think I realize what I'm doing. I don't believe in the total Lau thing, but I think I need some sort of weight shift to hit the ball with more power. It's simple: I have to go back before I can go forward.It has helped me to put the ball in the seats, which I never did before. I always got a topspin, and I'd hit the ball to the warning track. Now I get the backspin, and the ball carries for me. Everything before was an uppercut and I was hitting on top of the ball, so I was getting line drives that would drop down. WILLIAMS: What you're saying is that you're swinging down on the ball and -- get me some paper, O.K. There's a great thing in life called logic. If you say you like to swing down. MATTINGLY: I didn't say that.I just said I like to get backspin on the ball. WILLIAMS: O.K. You want backspin, so you're cutting the ball. We'll say you're swinging level. At the moment of impact, in order to hit the ball just right and cut it, you have to hit it on the underneath side with the ball coming slightly down. Now, if I swing slightly up, I hit it with the greatest impact. This swing incorporates the single most important thing -- not shifting your weight but getting your butt moving, your hips working. Do you believe that? MATTINGLY: Yes, definitely. WILLIAMS: [Standing in back of Mattingly.] Try to swing down. There's no hip movement at all there. If Don Mattingly wants to swing up, you're pretty well forced to move your hips, are you not? Two reasons I like slightly up. First, it incorporates your hips, which makes it possible to be quick and fast. Second, you're hitting in the exact plane of the pitch. BOGGS: How do you think I swing? WILLIAMS: You swing up a little, but you practice, practice that stuff. [He puts his head down and chops downward. Boggs gets up and swings, keeping his head down.] Yeah, that downswing. Since whatever you practice, you're more inclined to do, that's what you do in games. Everyone tells me that in batting practice you're hitting them out of sight, that you're pulling the ball and getting it in the air and going to hit 30 home runs. Why not in a game? MATTINGLY: But by exaggerating the downswing -- if I'm an uppercutter -- I'm not really swinging down in games, but I'm at least going to try to get my hands extended. WILLIAMS: I want you to show me how you think your hands are. This is funny, because you don't realize what you're doing. Let me ask you something. How do you think your hands are at the moment of contact? MATTINGLY: It depends on where the ball is. WILLIAMS: Is your left hand on top of your right hand? MATTINGLY: I don't know. WILLIAMS: Ohhhh. MATTINGLY: Really, I don't -- I don't know what my hands are doing and all that stuff. I just know what feels right. WILLIAMS: Try to open up and hit the way you first showed me. [Mattingly swings with hit top hand coming over his bottom hand.] BOGGS: Ground balls to the right side. WILLIAMS: Now this. [He pulls at Mattingly's hands so that Mattingly strains, with his left fist following behind his right.] Which is stronger? No doubt. This is a quick, strong game. I want to get the bat there as quickly as I can. They're going to say, listen to that old man Williams telling those good young hitters what to do, but you're 24 and 27. I've analyzed hitting as much as anyone ever has, and I know you've got to be logical. MATTINGLY: Didn't you shift weight when you hit? WILLIAMS: I'm going to ask you what your definition of shifting weight is. MATTINGLY: The transfer of weight. WILLIAMS: Where to where? MATTINGLY: From anywhere -- from where the head is to six, eight inches. BOGGS: All right, let's put it in boxing theory. If a boxer hits you, is he going to generate more power from here [indicates a long punch] or more power from here [short punch]. WILLIAMS: He'll generate more power if he doesn't do a thing, then goes umph with his hips. BOGGS: You're saying all you do is throw the hips? Nothing else? Where do you get the initial movement in the action-reaction process? WILLIAMS: [He draws two fighters on a piece of paper.] If this guy strides and puts all his weight on his front foot, his weight's forward. I don't want to cheat myself six or eight inches toward the pitcher. Why give him that? MATTINGLY: I agree with you. I think you have to wait, then explode. I don't think you have to shift to the front leg. WILLIAMS: That's what you said earlier. MATTINGLY: No, I didn't. Well, I did, but I didn't mean to the extent that you're saying all the Lau people do. What I was always taught was to wait, wait, wait, see the ball and then hit it. I get my weight back -- wait, wait, wait, then throw it. [He practices his swing.] WILLIAMS: But you're not really exaggerating the weight shift there. MATTINGLY: I'm already leaning back, so I've got to get forward some way.