No Easy Way: The Story of Ted Williams and the Last .400 Season (review)

.39955, .400, .406. The string of decimals may not immediately ring bells today, but for diehard baseball fans in 1941, they were benchmarks of a remarkable season for Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams. In this tightly focused picture-book presentation, Bowen dispatches some basic biographical data on Williams' early years and speeds right onto his annus mirabilus. Keeping the age of his audience in mind, Bowen first establishes why Williams' goal of a .400 season was such a big deal: "Major leaguers don't even get hits half the time they're at bat. But getting a hit 40 percent of the time—batting .400—Ted thought it might be possible." Then readers (and listeners, since the format makes for a lively readaloud as well) taste some of the tension fans would have felt watching him throughout the season as he edged ever closer to that rare achievement, as his average "rose to .436 in June. It fell to .402 in August. Then it went back up to .413 in September." And then came the character-building (-revealing?) turning point; with his average dipping to .39955, Williams had to decide whether to sit out the end of the season and allow the average to round up, or to play it out to the end. And the rest is baseball history—a triumphant double header that left his record in no doubt at .406. Pyle's paintings deliver just what young fans crave—full and three-quarter page scenes capture every angle of the excitement on field, in the stands, on the streets, and in the press box and gain traction from several black-and-white photographs that subtly remind readers that this is the real deal. As kids ponder a season that hasn't been duplicated in nearly seventy years, they'll have one more reason to follow MLB 2010 with avid interest.