This is genuine, and unusually easy to pin down: it is the first sentence of The Science of Hitting, the batting manual Williams wrote with Sports Illustrated’s John Underwood and published by Simon & Schuster in 1971. Williams opens the book by staking the claim, then spends the rest of the chapter defending it — mostly against golf.
“Hitting a baseball — I've said it a thousand times — is the single most difficult thing to do in sport” Ted Williams (1918–2002), the opening sentence of The Science of Hitting, written with John Underwood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971). Verified wording. Via quotle.info
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In context
Evoking the world of Ted Williams — Boston Red Sox left fielder, Hall of Fame 1966. Theme: "Hitting a baseball — I've said it a thousand times — is the single most difficult thing to do in sport". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Hitting a baseball — I've said it a thousand times — is the single most difficult thing to do in sport". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The source
Work
The Science of Hitting
Authors
Ted Williams with John Underwood
Published
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1971; revised edition 1986
Position in text
The book’s opening sentence
Hitting a baseball—I’ve said it a thousand times—is the single most difficult thing to do in sport.
Opening line
Williams goes straight from this sentence into his defence of it: a run of comparisons with quarterbacks, basketball shooters and above all golfers, and the observation that even a .300 hitter fails seven times out of ten and is still considered good. The book is in copyright, so only the opening sentence is reproduced here, for identification.
The wording and its position come from the book’s own text rather than from a catalogue record: an independent write-up of the book quotes the sentence exactly as printed and calls it “the first line of the book” ↗. We checked that against a full text of the opening chapter: the sentence stands alone on the first page after the dedication, and Williams goes straight from it into his defence of it.
The edition facts — and only those — come from the Wikipedia article on The Science of Hitting ↗: a batting manual credited to Ted Williams with John Underwood, published by Simon & Schuster in 1971 and revised in 1986. That article quotes nothing from the book, so it is cited here for the imprint and the dates, not for the sentence.
The collaborator was John Underwood ↗, a Sports Illustrated staff writer from 1961 to 1984 who had already worked with Williams on the 1969 autobiography My Turn at Bat.
The Internet Archive holds a catalogued copy of the 1986 revised Simon & Schuster edition ↗; it is lending-restricted rather than open, which is part of why the line circulates uncited.
The Science of Hitting was first published in 1971 and revised in 1986, both well after the 1931 US public-domain cutoff, so the book and this sentence remain in copyright; the rights sit with the authors’ estates and Simon & Schuster. The single opening line is quoted here for identification and verification, not as a substitute for the book.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What goes wrong with this one
The attribution is right — Williams really wrote it. What circulates badly is the wording, the sourcing, and the second name on the title page.
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Wording“The hardest thing to do in all of sports” paraphrase
A widely shared form on blogs and social posts reshuffles the sentence into “The Hardest Thing to do in All of Sports, Without Question, Is to Hit a Baseball” — presented as a Williams quotation with no source cited ↗. The book prints “the single most difficult thing to do in sport” — singular sport, and no “without question.”
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WordingThe “round bat, round ball” line different quote
SourcingQuote sites that give no citation unsourced
Despite being a printed first line, the sentence still sits in the “Unsourced” list on Wikiquote’s Ted Williams talk page ↗ — a good illustration of how a quotation can circulate for decades detached from a source that was never really in doubt.
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CreditJohn Underwood co-author
The book is credited to Ted Williams with John Underwood ↗, the Sports Illustrated writer who also shaped Williams’s 1969 autobiography. The thought and the voice are Williams’s; the sentence reached print through a collaboration, which the usual bare attribution hides.
Williams did not toss this off in a clubhouse scrum. He put it in the first line of an instructional book, which is a deliberate act — the whole premise of The Science of Hitting is that hitting deserved the kind of serious technical literature golf already had. The sentence is the thesis statement, and the aside (“I’ve said it a thousand times”) is Williams telling you he expects an argument.
He gets one immediately. What follows in the book is a run of comparisons — quarterbacks, basketball shooters, and above all golfers, whose ball, he notes, sits still and waits for you. The clincher is the one every hitter knows: a .300 hitter, a rare thing even then, fails at his job seven times out of ten and is still called good.
The line is not a boast. It is the reason the book exists.
How the book came about
Williams retired as a player in 1960 and was managing the Washington Senators when the book was published in 1971. His collaborator, John Underwood, was a Sports Illustrated staff writer from 1961 to 1984 who had met Williams while profiling his retirement as a fisherman; that profile grew into the 1969 autobiography My Turn at Bat, and The Science of Hitting followed. A revised and updated edition was issued in 1986.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1918–2002 · Boston Red Sox left fielder, Hall of Fame 1966
Theodore Samuel Williams played his entire 19-year major-league career for the Boston Red Sox (1939–1960), interrupted twice by military service, and finished with a .344 career average. In 1941 he hit .406 — still the last .400 season in the majors — and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1966, his first year of eligibility. He later managed the Washington Senators / Texas Rangers franchise from 1969 to 1972, which is where he was when The Science of Hitting appeared.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Ted Williams with John Underwood, The Science of Hitting (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971), opening sentence; revised edition, Simon & Schuster, 1986.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hitting a baseball — I've said it a thousand times — is the single most difficult thing to do in sport’?” Last verified 27 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hitting-a-baseball-ive-said-it-a-thousand-times-is-the/