In 1958 at Griffith Stadium, Ted Williams edged Pete Runnels for sixth batting title

After Washington infielder “Pete” Runnels slumped to .230 in 1957, Calvin Griffith foolishly traded him to the Boston Red Sox.

By mid-July in 1958, Runnels was hovering around .330 and leading the league in hitting, thanks in part to the tutelage of Ted Williams. The Splendid Splinter was coming off a season in which he had famously hit an amazing .388 at age 39. Despite being a left-hand hitter, Runnels — his given name was James but his parents called him “little Pete” as a child — benefited greatly from Fenway Park. He hit well over .400 there for the season. In contrast, Williams, a dead pull hitter, averaged just one point better at Fenway in 1958 than he did on the road.

“I’ve picked up more hitting tips in two months with Ted than I had picked up in my entire career,” Runnels said in May 1958. “Batting in front of him certainly didn’t hurt, either. Pitchers gave me plenty of good balls to hit,” Runnels said years later.”

Pete’s .387 average for July separated him from the rest of league. Although he had 32 doubles in 1958, he often found himself stopping at first base so that pitchers wouldn’t be able to pitch around, and walk, Williams.

 Various aches and pains kept Williams, who turned 40 in August, from playing every day, although he never missed more than a game or two in a row. Still, well into the season, it wasn’t clear if Williams would get up enough times to make it to the qualifying minimum 502 plate appearances. That standard had been adopted after the 1954 season when Williams was denied a batting title because 136 walks kept him from reaching the then-required 400 official at-bats.

Injuries to his side and ankle hampered Williams early in the season. On May, he was hitting just .225, the worst start of his career. By late June, however, he has his average up to .300.

On September 24, Williams went 2-for-3 with a walk against the Yankees in Boston, raising his average to .320 and his plate appearances to 501. So the Red Sox, in fourth place, headed to Washington to face the last-place Senators in what otherwise would be a meaningless four games to finish the season. The only drama was whether Runnels or Williams would win the batting title.

After playing the Indians in Boston on September 24, Runnels was hitting .324. Because Runnels had been up many more times than Williams, it would be easier for the future Hall of Famer to raise his average with a good series. Given that Williams had been hitting better than .400 over the last 55 games in which he had appeared, the odds seemed in his favor.

On September 26, in the first game of a Griffith Stadium double-header, Williams was 2-for-3 with a walk, passing the required 502 times up and pushing his average to 3.2256. Runnels went 0-for-4 and dropped to 32219. Ted sat out the second game, while Pete had two hit in five at-bats, leaving him at 32258. It’s hard to get much closer.

With two games to go, the two men were in that virtual tie. In the third game, Pete tripled the first time up. Ted walked. The next time up, they both singled. In their next at bats, both homered. “What do I have to do to beat this guy?”  Runnels told reporters he was thinking. He had gone 3-for-6 and climbed back to .324, but Williams was 3-for-4 (and the walk) to reach .327.

Runnels failed to get a hit in the final game, falling to .322, 5-for-19 in the four games. Williams was 2-for-4, finishing the three games in which he played in Washington at 7-for-13 and a .328 average. It was the sixth and final batting title for, arguably, the greatest hitter of all time.

In any case, Runnels was honored as the A.L. Comeback Player of the Year for 1958. Although Albie Pearson, one of the guys Runnels was traded for, was named 1958’s A.L. Rookie of the Year, Bob Allison took Pearson’s job in 1959 and little Albie soon moved on. Runnels, meanwhile won batting titles in Boston in 1960 and ’62.

In a 2001 autobiography, Williams admitted he was half pulling for Runnels to win the ’58 batting championship. “I was thinking in my heart, I hope he wins it…. I’m not going to give it to him … but I hope he wins it, ” Williams said. “We weren’t in the pennant race. It certainly wouldn’t make much difference to me at that point. I wasn’t getting the kick out of it I had the year before.”

Runnels had a different take. “I enjoyed Williams catching me on the final day more than the later titles of 1960 and 1962 because of the great competition,” an admiring Runnels said years later, calling it the highlight of his career.

Runnels, who died in 1991, played regularly at shortstop and second base for Washington from 1952 through 1957, hitting .310 in 1956. Williams famously returned to D.C. to manage the expansion Senators in 1969, so both men are significant figures in Washington baseball history, beyond the batting race that took place at Griffith Stadium in September 1958.

A version of this appeared September 30, 2023, in Here’s the Pitch, the online newsletter of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America.