Most people know that going into the last game, Williams was hitting .39955 and that he felt that .39955 wasn’t .400, so he played.

After getting a hit in his first at bat, his average was high enough that another out wouldn’t put him below .400. After his first hit, no other at-bat he had that day threatened the .400 mark.

According to the account I read, when asked if he would take himself out if he were faced with a situation where he might have dipped below .400 with an out, he said something to the effect of “I’d have to think about that”.

Had the Brewers played earlier in the day with Braun going hitless and Reyes pulled himself from a game after one hit it would be a different case. Reyes and the Mets used the math and gambled that Braun would have to get 3 hits in 4 at bats to beat.

This argument is a poor one at best. Jose Reyes only won a batting title. One of a few hundred in baseball history. Williams feat was one of only a small handfull.

Don’t bash Reyes or the Mets over a relatively minor award. They didn’t cheat and winning the title was the club’s first in 50 years!

LET IT GO DUDES!

Willie Wilson
Alex Johnson
George Brett
Bill Mueller
Ken Griffey Jr,
Bill Madlock
Terry Pendleton
Ty Cobb
Tim Raines

It’s gamesmanship and nothing new. And I would not have faulted Ryan Braun if the shoe was on the other foot, and I bet he would have done it too although we’ll never know.

Even if Jose played the remainder of the final game and went 0 for 5, he still would have finished the season with the batting title. He came out of the game because the title was in the bag and he was probably told this.

Jose finished the season with 181 hits out of 537 AB’s. If you take away the one bunt for a hit that everyone is crying about, and assume he finished the final game going 0 for 5, his end of the season stats would be 180 hits in 541 AB’s giving him a batting average of 332.7. Ryan Braun finished the season with 187 hits in 563 AB’s giving him an end of the season batting average of 332.15, which is still less than Jose’s average.

Now if Braun went 4 for 4 in the final game, he could have beat Jose with a batting average of 339.3, but he didn’t he went 0 for 4. Once Jose came out of the game, Braun still had a shot at winning the title but fell short.

All Jose had left to play for was to ensure the batting title was his, and the bunt base hit was all he needed to lock it up. I do not understand why everyone is hammering him about coming out of the game. The game was meaningless anyways. My first inclination would be that Sandy and Fred yanked Reyes out, because the Mets organization needed to win this batting title because it adds a bright spot to a less than spectacular season.

If you all looked at the stats, you would see that Jose won it legitimately and even if he played the entire game, the end result would have remained the same.