All or Nothing for This Williams

Babe Ruth is having a terrible year. So is Roger Maris. Hack Wilson must need a drink somewhere today. Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg must be groaning.

It’s about those home runs. You know, the 60-homer season--like the four-minute mile and the 9.9 100 meters--was supposed to be the most unattainable record in the books.

When Ruth hit his 60 home runs in 1927, the only guy in either league close to him was Lou Gehrig with 47. After that it was Tony Lazzeri with 18.

When Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920, that was one-fifth of the total home runs hit by the National League, and only one team in all of baseball hit as many as the Babe that year.

When Roger Maris broke Ruth’s record, by one, it was widely held to be a fluke. Maris had never hit more than 39 home runs and never hit more than 33 after his Ruthian season, 1961.

Now, look at the grand old game. Home runs are flying out of ballparks like popcorn.

In his record-setting year, Ruth had hit 25 home runs by the end of June.

Care to guess how many guys were ahead of or even with his pace in this Year of Our Lord 1994? Four. A half-dozen more were within hailing distance.

If someone had told you back in time that a guy named Williams would be a threat to the great Bambino, you would have said, “Oh, sure. Ted Williams, right?”

Nope. One of the biggest threats to the Babe--and Maris--is a Williams named Matt. Nobody ever called him “the Thumper,” “the Splendid Splinter,” “Teddy Ballgame.” Unlike the other Williams, he’s no threat to win the triple crown.

But Matthew Derrick Williams of the San Francisco Giants can hit home runs. Oh, can he hit home runs!

One of every four hits he has in his career has been a home run. This year, almost one in every two hits is a home run. Williams has 30 home runs among his 77 hits.

Of course, part of the problem is, Williams doesn’t hit much else. Sometimes, he doesn’t hit anything. He has struck out 57 times already.

Actually, Williams doesn’t have to catch the Babe and Maris to get a rung up on the Hall of Fame. He has to catch Wilson. Hack was the hard-hitting--and hard-drinking--Chicago Cub who holds the National League record for homers, 56, set in 1930.

Williams is far ahead of Wilson’s record pace. In fact, his 29 home runs at the end of June are the most hit by a National Leaguer by that date.

Unlike Ruth, Williams will not outslug every other team in the league and all but one in baseball. There were more than 1,000 homers hit in the National League by June’s end. The teams have three months to surpass the 1,956 hit last year.

Ruth had a home run every fourth hit--2,873 hits, 714 of them homers--but Ruth had batting averages of .393, .378, .376 and .342 lifetime. Williams’ high mark was .294, last year. He is at .249 this year.

The damage he does with that modest number is significant, however. Before the weekend, he was fifth in the league in runs batted in with 58. And twice in his career, he has driven in more than 100 runs. He is, unaccountably, not given to being walked by the pitchers. He has been walked intentionally only four times this season--compared to 14 for teammate Barry Bonds. Is he homer-happy? There have been instances of that phenomenon in other players. Dave Kingman, for instance, had 442 home runs--20th on the all-time list--among his 1,575 hits. But Kingman never came close to hitting .300 and once had an embarrassing .198 season. He was also hard to walk--strolling only 45 times one year when he hit 48 home runs. Ruth used to walk 170 or so times a year, Matt Williams walked only 27 times last year.

But do you change a formula that seems to be making history? Williams agrees he would like to post better decimals. But do you do it at the expense of the longball?

Williams is not sure he wants to risk it. Does he actively try to hit home runs?

“No,” he says. “If you try to hit a home run, you won’t. Home runs happen. They are not planned.”

So, maybe Ruth didn’t really call his shot in the World Series that day in ’32. Williams doesn’t believe you can call a home run. He should know.

Does Williams think he has this natural home run stroke, a la Maris? Maris was the master of the 325-foot homer, stroking the ball barely far enough to reach the friendly right-field porch in Yankee Stadium.

“I don’t think so,” Williams says. “Nobody ever commented on it. I just try to hit the ball and have good bat speed. I don’t know if it’s a good stroke.”

It must be. Williams is a strong man, like that homer hitter of the past, Harmon Killebrew. Killebrew finished with 573 homers and Williams so uncannily resembles him, they could be twins.

Does Williams hit tape-measure homers, a la Mickey Mantle?

“Naw!” he scoffs. “My home runs are just far enough. Of my home runs this year, I’d say 10 of them went to right and center field. The rest, I pulled.”

Having said that, Williams went out that night and pulled a ball so far up the left field bleachers it came within a few feet of going out of the park altogether.

Does he stand there and watch his home runs go out the way Killebrew used to?

Williams shakes his head. “No. I hit the ball, I start to run.”

His teammates scoff at the notion he has to run out his homers. “They orbit,” they tell you.

The baseball world is aware of Ken Griffey Jr. and his quest for the homer title with an eye-popping 32 already. They watch Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox, who has 29. He also has a nickname, “the Big Hurt.”

Williams is merely “M. Williams 3b” on the Giant lineup card. But he’s in a great tradition. The homer lists are dotted with third basemen--Mike Schmidt with 548; Eddie Mathews, 512; Graig Nettles, 390; Tony Perez, 379; Ron Santo, 342.

“Third basemen can be big,” Williams explains. “Shortstops and second basemen have to be small and quick. They have more ground to cover.”

Is the ball souped up this year?

“I’m not sure,” Williams says. “I hit 38 home runs last year and it certainly doesn’t feel any different this year.”

Because he’s only 28, Williams could be pardoned for looking ahead at some possible Hall of Fame numbers. After all, 188 home runs in really only five seasons is an impressive start. It’s a great career for most.

Assuming 10 more years in uniform, the numbers project to 564 or more home runs. This puts Williams with Henry Aaron, Ruth, Willie Mays, Reggie Jackson and company. A goal, perhaps?

He shakes his head.

“I don’t want to win home run derbies,” he says. “I want to win pennants.”

He did get in one World Series. He got one hit. You guessed it--home run.

It has been 17 years since anyone hit more than 50 homers in a season in the National League. George Foster had 52 in 1977. You have to go back to 1947 to find a time when two National Leaguers hit 50 or more in a year--Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize.

In the American League, you have to go back to ’61 to find a pair of 50-plus round-trippers--Maris with his 61 and Mantle with 54. For a long time that season, it looked as though both of them might break the Babe’s record. But before that, you have to reach back to 1938, when Hank Greenberg hit 58 and Foxx 50.

This year, the 50-homer set may become a club. Williams has a chance to set a lot of baseball history this fall. Provided he does not fritter away his time hitting doubles and triples.

Given his past performances, he’s not likely to.