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Who really said it

The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers

Attributed to Ted Williams 1918–2002 · Red Sox left fielder; Senators manager, 1969–1971
Attributed In copyright

The credit is plausible and the line is documented — but only as one man’s memory. Washington Senators pitcher Bob Humphreys recalled his manager saying it, in an interview given on 6 June 2007 and printed in the Society for American Baseball Research’s The National Pastime in 2009. No contemporaneous report of the remark has surfaced, and a different phrasing of the same joke appears in Ben Bradlee Jr.’s Williams biography, so the polished sentence everyone quotes cannot be pinned to a primary source.

Last verified 8 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers” Ted Williams (attributed) — "The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers." Recalled by Washington Senators pitcher Bob Humphreys in an interview of 6 June 2007 and first printed in Steve Walker, "Ted Williams," The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball (SABR, 2009). No contemporaneous source; Ben Bradlee Jr.'s The Kid records the joke in a different, question-and-answer form. Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Society for American Baseball Research and Steve Walker (The National Pastime, 2009); the remark itself is attributed to Ted Williams and his estate). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Ted Williams — Boston Red Sox left fielder; manager, Washington Senators 1969–1971. Theme: "The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers". 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 "The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers". 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

Where the line actually comes from

Speaker
Ted Williams, as recalled by pitcher Bob Humphreys
Earliest printing found
“Ted Williams,” by Steve Walker
Published in
The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball (SABR, 2009)
Underlying source
Author’s interview with Bob Humphreys, 6 June 2007 (note 6)

I had no problems with him. I would rag on him and he would give it right back. He would say, ‘The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers.’ Bob Humphreys, SABR oral history

The speaker here is Humphreys, quoting Williams. The words attributed to Williams are inside his pitcher’s recollection, given in a 2007 interview — not a transcript, a recording or a report made at the time.

Steve Walker, “Ted Williams,” The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball (SABR, 2009)

How the line got to you

  • 1969 — Williams takes over the expansion Washington Senators, goes 86–76 in the club’s only winning season in Washington, and is named Manager of the Year. He manages the franchise through 1972. Wikipedia ↗
  • 6 June 2007 — Steve Walker interviews Bob Humphreys, who pitched for the Senators from April 1966 until his release in June 1970, for a piece on Williams’s first Washington team. Humphreys’s SABR biography ↗
  • 2009 — the line reaches print, inside Humphreys’s recollection, in SABR’s convention journal. This is the earliest printing we were able to locate. The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball ↗
  • 2013 — a different phrasing of the same joke appears in Ben Bradlee Jr.’s biography The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, put as a question and answer. Internet Archive full-text search ↗
In copyright

The remark was spoken, not published, so rights attach to the work that carries it — Steve Walker’s article in The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball, published by SABR in 2009 and still in copyright. Ben Bradlee Jr.’s The Kid (Little, Brown, 2013), which records the other phrasing, is likewise in copyright. Because no pre-1931 publication of this line exists, nothing here is in the public domain; quote the sentence with attribution rather than reproducing the surrounding passages.

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

Not the wrong man — the wrong kind of certainty

This is not a stolen-quote case. No rival claimant exists, and every printing we found credits Williams. What the internet gets wrong is the confidence: the line is passed around as a documented Williams saying when it is an undated clubhouse memory, and the crisp sentence people quote is only one of two recorded phrasings.

Two different versions are in print mis-worded

Humphreys’s recollection gives the polished declarative form. Ben Bradlee Jr.’s Williams biography The Kid gives it as a set-up and punchline instead — “What do you think is dumber than a pitcher? Two pitchers.” — in a passage that runs straight on into Senators pitcher Dick Bosman’s further recollections. Compare the snippets ↗

Quote aggregators no citation

Sites such as Quotes.net list the sentence under Williams’s name with no source, no date and no context, sitting next to other unsourced Williams lines. That is where most people meet it. Quotes.net ↗

Wikiquote unsourced

Wikiquote’s Ted Williams article does not carry the line at all. It sits on the article’s talk page, under a heading that reads simply “Unsourced” — the holding pen for quotes nobody has been able to cite. Talk:Ted Williams ↗

No contemporaneous account recalled long afterwards

Williams managed in Washington from 1969; Humphreys described the exchange to Steve Walker in an interview dated 6 June 2007, and it reached print two years after that. We found no newspaper, broadcast or book record of the line from the years it was supposedly said. The interview note ↗

Williams almost certainly said something very like this — the joke turns up in more than one book about him, in more than one form, always from the men who pitched for him. What nobody has produced is a record made at the time. The exact sentence quoted everywhere is a single pitcher’s memory, given in 2007 and printed in 2009. Read the passage ↗

Context

Why a hitter would say this

Williams spent nineteen seasons trying to beat pitchers and then, in 1969, found himself managing a clubhouse full of them. His first Washington team went 86–76 — the only winning season the franchise ever had in Washington — and he was named Manager of the Year for it, so nobody much minded the ribbing. Wikipedia’s account of his managing years ↗

The line survives because it was part of a running argument. Humphreys told Steve Walker that he would rag Williams and Williams would give it right back — the pitcher countering that he would like a job where you could fail six times out of ten and still be a star, and Williams answering that with the right stuff to throw at, he might have hit .600. That exchange, not a lectern or a book, is the natural home of the line. Read the passage at SABR ↗

“I would rag on him and he would give it right back.”

What would move this from ‘attributed’ to ‘verified’?

A contemporaneous record — a 1969–71 newspaper column, wire story or broadcast transcript in which a reporter quotes Williams saying it at the time, rather than a player remembering it decades afterwards.

Or Williams’s own words in print. The remark appears in neither of the books he wrote with John Underwood, and a full-text search of the Internet Archive’s digitised book corpus returns the exact sentence “the only thing dumber than a pitcher…” in no book at all. See the search ↗

Until then the honest verdict is the one on this page: he very likely said it, in some form, and the form you see quoted is a single pitcher’s memory of how it went.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Steve Walker, “Ted Williams” (SABR)sabr.org

The earliest printing we could locate. Quotes Bob Humphreys verbatim — “He would say, ‘The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers’” — and footnotes it to the author’s interview of 6 June 2007.
Talk:Ted Williams — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Where the line actually lives on Wikiquote: the talk page’s “Unsourced” list, alongside “Baseball is the only field of endeavor…” and other Williams lines nobody has pinned down.
Ted Williams — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The sourced article itself. Worth checking because the line is not in it — neither in the quotes section nor in “Quotes about Ted Williams.”
Internet Archive full-text search: “dumber than a pitcher”openlibrary.org

Five hits across the whole digitised book corpus, none of them using the declarative wording. Ben Bradlee Jr.’s The Kid gives the joke as a question and answer instead.
Bob Humphreys — SABR BioProjectsabr.org

Biography of the pitcher whose memory this quote rests on. Confirms he was traded to Washington in April 1966 and stayed with the Senators until his release on 13 June 1970.
Ted Williams — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Life dates, the .406 season of 1941, and the managing record: Senators 1969–71, an 86–76 first year, Manager of the Year.

The hitter who never forgave the other guy

Who was Ted Williams?

Ted Williams

1918–2002 · Boston Red Sox left fielder; manager, Washington Senators 1969–1971

Ted Williams spent nineteen seasons with the Boston Red Sox, interrupted twice by military service, and finished with a .344 career batting average, 521 home runs and the highest on-base percentage in the history of the game. In 1941 he hit .406 — still the last time any major leaguer batted over .400 across a full season. He came back to the field as a manager in 1969, taking the expansion Washington Senators to 86–76 and Manager of the Year honours, and brought with him the one prejudice nineteen years in the batter’s box had hardened: a deep, cheerful, unshakeable low opinion of pitchers.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest printing we could locate

Steve Walker, “Ted Williams,” in The National Pastime: Monumental Baseball (Washington, DC: Society for American Baseball Research, 2009), quoting the author’s interview with Bob Humphreys, 6 June 2007 (note 6).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-only-thing-dumber-than-a-pitcher-is-two-pitchers/

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