What if Red Sox star Ted Williams didn’t miss time for military service?

Red Sox star Ted Williams missed five seasons for military service.

Ted Williams is responsible for several of the greatest individual seasons in Boston Red Sox history. While he ranks among the elite in most offensive categories from the numbers he piled up over 19 seasons with the franchise, his legacy would have been even more impressive if he hadn’t missed nearly five years of his prime to serve in the military.

The United States joined World War II in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Williams was initially drafted with a 1A status but received a deferment because he was the sole supporter of his mother. The Splendid Splinter was harshly criticized by the fans and media for what they perceived as a lack of patriotism. Williams brushed off the heckling to capture the Triple Crown in 1942 and finish as the runner-up for the MVP award.

After the 1942 season, Williams joined the Navy reserve and was called to active duty in November of that year. He would miss the next three seasons while training to be a fighter pilot.

While he never saw combat during WWII, the experience prepared him for his stint as a Marine pilot during the Korean War. Williams missed the majority of the 1952-53 seasons while serving his country in Korea, where he became a war hero.

That’s nearly five years of his career between the ages of 24 and 34 that Williams was away from the Red Sox. His resume is unmatched by any position player in franchise history but how could the perception of his career be improved if he hadn’t missed those seasons during his prime?

Projecting career numbers for Red Sox star Ted Williams

Williams was the runner-up for the AL MVP award in consecutive seasons prior to his hiatus during WWII. He was clearly the best player in baseball at the time and was robbed of the hardware by players from the pennant-winning Yankees.

Teddy Ballgame didn’t miss a beat when he returned in 1946, capturing his first MVP award while leading the Red Sox to the pennant. Health permitting, there’s no reason to believe that Williams wouldn’t have produced at a similar level during those three seasons that he missed during the war.

Williams averaged approximately 182 hits, 37 home runs, 127 RBI, 139 runs scored, and 149 walks in the three seasons he played between 1941 and 1946. Based on those averages, Williams conceivably could have added 546 hits, 111 home runs, 381 RBI, 417 runs scored, and 447 walks during those three years that he missed during WWII.

Projecting the two years during the Korean War is a bit trickier.  An injury during the 1950 All-Star game limited him to only 89 games that season. He bounced back with a great 1951 season, leading the league in one-base percentage and slugging, but his production was down slightly from his peak years from the previous decade. Was that due to lingering effects from the injury or was it related to being on the wrong side of 30?

We can’t assume that Williams would have averaged the type of production we projected during his lost years in the 1940s. We also can’t use the same before-and-after strategy to calculate averages for the years he missed while serving in Korea. He was still battling arm soreness in 1951 and broke his collar bone in the spring of 1954, limiting him to 117 games in his first full season after the war.

There isn’t much we can take away from his limited time from 1952-53, aside from that he hit over .400 in that 43-game sample to prove he was still an elite hitter. He probably would have been healthier than he was in the previous two years but was also gradually getting older so those factors somewhat cancel each other out.

If we completely wipe away his production from those two partial seasons and replace it with a very conservative estimate using his 1951 production, we can add another 338 hits, 60 home runs, 252 RBI, 218 runs scored, and 288 walks.

Red Sox World Series chances with Ted Williams

Would the Red Sox have won a World Series with Williams if he hadn’t lost those five seasons? That depends on how we want to twist the narrative of this hypothetical scenario. Other clubs lost star players to military service as well. If we pretend that WWII never happened, the Red Sox would still need to climb over Joe DiMaggio‘s Yankees.

If we assume that DiMaggio and other star players from rival teams still miss time between 1943-1945, does that mean we have to assume Williams would lose a few teammates? Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr each missed at least one season during WWII. Boston’s title chances would still be hindered if Williams didn’t have talent around him.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that every player who went off to war during that period still misses those years – except for Williams.

Boston finished second in the American League with 93 wins in 1942 but sank all the way to seventh in the eight-team league with 68 wins the following year while Williams went off to war. The Red Sox didn’t lose all their star players during that first season during WWII but they were without Pesky and DiMaggio. Williams alone wouldn’t have been enough to bridge the gap between Boston and the 98-win Yankees.

1944 may have been a different story. The Red Sox climbed to 77 wins and a fourth-place finish, 12 games behind the St. Louis Browns. While they won the pennant, the 89-win Browns weren’t exactly a powerhouse. Doerr had the best year of his career to that point while leading the league in slugging. Tex Hughson won 18 games with a 2.26 ERA. Add Teddy Ballgame to the mix and the Red Sox had a legitimate shot at the pennant. Boston would have been underdogs against Stan Musial and the 105-win St. Louis Cardinals but at least they would have a fighting chance.

The Red Sox fell back to seventh in 1945 as Doerr and Hughson joined the list of star players serving in the military. Not even the great Ted Williams could have overcome a 17.5 game deficit without those two All-Stars.

The 1950s was a miserable decade for the Red Sox. The aforementioned star teammates had moved on or retired by the time Williams left for the Korean War. Other MLB teams began integrating black players but the institutionalized racism created by owner Tom Yawkey and his front office cronies resulted in the talent on the Red Sox roster falling behind the competition. The team finished no higher than fourth in the AL in the two years Williams mostly missed and it’s safe to say that the pennant was out of reach even if they had their superstar.

Boston’s chances of ending their title drought decades earlier probably wouldn’t have increased dramatically if Williams stayed home during those two wars but he would have had one legitimate chance in ’44. The Cardinals were a better team that year but we could never count out Williams at his peak on that stage.

Williams certainly would have won the MVP if the Red Sox had won the pennant in 1944, giving him three trophies on his mantle. Five extra seasons worth of production would  have allowed him to cruise to the top of the all-time list in several categories, in addition to the on-base percentage category he currently tops in major league history. While it was hardly a given, Williams may have won a World Series title during that span, forever altering his legacy and the history of the Red Sox organization.