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's 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."
———
MINNESOTA'S SURPRISE: Between winning the Home Run Derby and scoring the winning run in the all-star game, Justin Morneau of New Westminster, B.C., was all smiles in New York last week.
But the big difference for him in all-star experiences from last year to this one is that his Minnesota Twins are back in the chase for a post-season berth, a half-game back of the White Sox for first in the AL Central heading into Monday's action.
"Nobody really gave us a shot coming out of spring training and everyone in our clubhouse believed that we have a good team and had talent," he says. "Our pitching has been great, we're getting timely hits, everything. When you're the underdog it's a lot of fun to beat people when nobody really expects you to."
Morneau made a point of watching how the team restocked itself following the departures of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana before signing a US$80-million, six-year contract extension. The work of GM Bill Smith has impressed him.
"Look at Carlos Gomez," says Morneau, "he's one of the most talented athletes in all the big leagues. He's still learning the game, still got a chance to improve, who knows how good he can be. Delmon Young is starting to settle in, he's feeling a lot more comfortable in Minnesota, you bring in these guys with an unbelievable amount of talent and you feel good to be a part of that team, watching these guys get better every day.
"We have a chance to be a pretty good team for a while."
———
MARTIN'S MOVE?: New Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre hasn't had much more success than his predecessor, Grady Little, in getting Russ Martin to take some time off.
The catcher from Chelsea, Que., has appeared in 96 of L.A.'s 98 games this season before Monday's play, forcing Torre to find creative ways to get Martin some rest.
His solution? Play Martin at third base, his first position in the minors and something he's done eight times so far in 2008.
"He's always got the last word, he's got the pen and paper to write out the lineup card, but I try to state my case every time he tries to take me out," says Martin. "I tell him I'm good to go but the fact I've played at third base this year has helped me out a lot."
Martin played in 151 games during a Gold Glove season in 2007 and the workload took a toll on him. His initial stint at third came when he took over from the injured Nomar Garciaparra partway through an April 26 game. But he's proven adept enough to gain more time there.
"(Third-base coach) Larry Bowa has had a huge impact on that," says Martin. "I took ground balls every day at shortstop during spring training and stuff and ever since then they were like, 'Wow, he can actually play a little bit of infield.'
"It's given me an opportunity to get a mental break, too, from catching."
———
WORLD JUNIORS: Baseball Canada is making its final preparations for the world junior baseball championship, which opens Friday in Edmonton.
Leading Canada into the 12-team tournament will be Brett Lawrie of Langley, B.C., who in June became the highest Canadian position player ever selected in the draft when the Milwaukee Brewers took him 16th.
Lawrie is also slated to play for Canada at the Olympics.
Canada opens Pool B play Friday against Italy. Also in its group are Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
