Never-before-seen footage unearthed! How Ted Williams' hitting philosophy holds up in 2026
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- Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr debated hitting philosophy on Oct. 9, 1987, during a fishing trip on Oregon's Rogue River, in long-lost footage found in the home of their late Red Sox teammate Dave "Boo" Ferriss and shared with ESPN.
- The debate followed strict rules: each Hall of Famer had 10 minutes to present his perspective, followed by 5-minute Q&A sessions with their fishing companions, who ultimately voted the debate a tie.
- Joey Votto, a six-time All-Star and former NL MVP, called Williams' book "The Science of Hitting" the "holy book" he carried from his minor league days through the end of his MLB career, and broke down five specific points from the recovered video.
- Fly ball rate in MLB climbed from 33.8% in 2015 to 39% in 2026, per FanGraphs, validating Williams' decades-old insistence that fly balls are the key to extra-base hits — a principle J.D. Martinez, Justin Turner, and Daniel Murphy later embraced to unlock their best seasons.
- The average MLB position player today stands 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, compared to roughly 6 feet and 180-185 pounds during Williams' era, giving modern hitters the size and strength to execute Williams' vision of pulling the ball in the air.
- Doerr conceded Williams was "so much ahead of anybody else" despite voting the debate a tie, acknowledging his debate partner's prescient understanding of mechanics like keeping the hips ahead of the hands in the swing.
Why it matters: Votto's analysis of the 1987 tape, combined with the 5.2 percentage-point rise in fly ball rate from 2015 to 2026, positions Williams as a forefather of the launch-angle revolution, with the recovered footage now functioning as a direct primary source for hitting coaches and players shaping the modern swing.
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