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[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by AndyC

I think Ted Williams was the first to face a shift. His success probably deterred future efforts of such a strategy.

Originally Posted by jimmyb

Over the years, Ted Williams encountered shifts quite often, and for a long time he, famously and proudly, didn't do much in the way of altering his approach with the bat. None other than Ty Cobb called him "stupid" for not being more adaptable.



Finally, a bit of advice from another great hitter helped Williams attack the shift by going the other way without tinkering too much with his cherished and carefully honed swing.

Originally Posted by Ted Williams in Science of Hitting

When I had such a hard time with Boudreau’s shift, and ones like it that sprung
up in 1947 and afterward, I survived by learning to hit to left field. Everybody was
saying—and the Boston writers were writing—that I wasn’t trying to hit to left, that
I was too stubborn, that all I cared about was ramming the ball into the teeth of
that shift, getting base hits in spite of it. The fact was, I was having a hard time
learning to hit to left. It wasn’t because I didn’t get any advice. Of that I got a
truckload.
Ty Cobb wrote me a two-page letter, outlining how he would do it. We met at
Yankee Stadium during the 1947 World Series, and he took me around behind a
telephone booth and we talked. He said, “Oh, boy, Ted, if they had ever pulled that
stuff on me, that drastic shift . . . ,” and his mouth was watering, seeing in his
mind’s eye the immortal Ty Cobb lashing the ball into that open range in left field.

Originally Posted by TW

Well, Cobb was more of a push hitter, a slap hitter. He choked up two inches from
the bottom and held the bat with his hands four inches apart. He stood close to the
plate, his hands forward. He had great ability to push the ball, to lash hits all
around. He was a great athlete, maybe the greatest, but he was a completely
different animal from me, and his words were like Greek.

The arc of my swing was much greater than Cobb’s What he said would apply to
guys more his type, guys who choked up on the bat more and pushed the ball
around. That wasn’t in me. I was down, with a longer stroke, a greater arc.

When I beat the shift, I did it by taking my stance a little farther from the plate,
striding slightly more into the pitch—but concentrating on getting on top of the ball
and pushing it. A push swing, an inside-out swing, fully extended, the hands ahead
of the fat part of the bat. This produced contact at 90 degrees or more from the
direction of the pitch, and sent the ball to the left of the pitcher’s box, away from
the shift. Almost like hitting pepper. Pepper can help you with this technique. In
fact, pepper is a great warmup game for any hitter, and as a manager I’m going to
insist that the Senators do more of it. I was always amazed when I’d go to the Red
Sox camp those last years to see them playing volleyball, when pepper is ten times
better exercise for ballplayers—pitchers included.

Originally Posted by TW on his own 'idol' of sorts

No hitter has it all. There probably never has been what you would call the
“complete” hitter. Ruth struck out more than he should have. Cobb didn’t have the
power, he didn’t have great style. Harry Heilmann wasn’t serious enough. Shoeless
Joe Jackson must have come close because all the old-time hitters used to talk about
how great he was, how complete a hitter he was, but of all the hitters I saw—if I had
to name one guy—I suppose it would be Rogers Hornsby. Hornsby was the closest
to the complete hitter—style, power, smartness, everything.
I’ll never forget as a twenty-year-old kid in camp with the Minneapolis team at
Daytona Beach, standing around the batting cage or in the lobby of the hotel,
picking Hornsby’s brains for everything I could, even personal things I had no right
knowing: How much money did you lose at the track? How much did you bet? And
he’d stay out there with me every day after practice and we’d have hitting contests,
just the two of us, and that old rascal would just keeping zinging those line drives.
Hornsby used to say, “A great hitter isn’t born, he’s made. He’s made out of
practice, fault correction and confidence.” Hornsby was talking about himself, I
think. He had a lot of confidence. He wasn’t a very diplomatic guy. He’d come right
out and say things, whatever was on his mind. If the owner of the club said
something about baseball he didn’t like, Hornsby would just say, “What the hell do
you know about it?” But he knew what it took to hit.