"Monday 10/5/1942: Hung and Breckenridge win Batter of the Year Award
The 1942 American League Batter of the Year Award winner has been announced. It's New York (A)'s rightfielder Ping Hung who really had a great offensive year. Hung has hit 4 longballs this year while batting .381. He adds 19 doubles, along with 90 runs scored. He's 1st in the American League in batting and 5th in RBI!"
Ping lead the league in BA, OBP, was second in SLG to Crocitto, a point off of Crocitto in OPS, lead the league in RC by 20, RC/27 by .7+, lead in hits, 5th in 3B, 4th in RBI, one off the R lead, lead in SB by 23, and lead the league in TB (though largely due to hits).
I think we might just call 1943 Ping's way have sending a giant F.U. to Yankees Management for five years of headscratching abuse. At 31, Ping finally wins the Batting Title he seemed destined to after going 2-2-4 from 1934-36 at the age of 23-25 and then promptly losing his fulltime job the next season.
I'll grant that Ping's style of BA+SB isn't exactly my fondest style (I'm a HR+BB boy), but after Ping's shafting, I want to send this out to Ping and his Decendant:
You two really deserved this.
Best,
John