THE MAN WAS AS BIG AS HIS MYTH.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

True to his stubborn heart, Ted Williams would be the last of them to go, the last of baseball's genuine legends to pass into the realm of newsreel footage and superlative and catch phrase.

Lou Gehrig. Babe Ruth. Ty Cobb. Joe DiMaggio. And now Ted Williams, the toughest out.

Any American under age 45, too young to have seen him play or appreciated him in his day, knows Williams only through myth inadequately passed down. Knows him through the black-and-white film that looped endlessly on television after Williams' death Friday, giving us glimpses of the graceful left-handed swing that seemed to sweep all the way from the sandlots of San Diego to the high bleacher seats of Fenway Park. Knows him through that cheerful nickname, ``Teddy Ballgame,'' that awesome title, ``Baseball's Greatest Hitter,'' and that enduring distinction, ``Last Man to Bat .400.'' Knows him through the shorthand for what he was denied because ``He lost all or part of five seasons to military service,'' ``He never played for a World Series winner'' and ``He won two Triple Crowns and wasn't the MVP.''

It's a lot, yet it's still too little to sum up a man who gripped life down at the knob and took an 83-year rip.

Baseball's Greatest Hitter? The only other candidate is Babe Ruth himself. Each led the league in on-base and slugging percentage nine times. (Rogers Hornsby also achieved that double nine times. Barry Bonds: three times. Stan Musial: three times. Mickey Mantle: twice. Willie Mays: once. DiMaggio: never.)

But the title is too narrow for a man whose excellence literally transcended baseball.

Last Man to Bat .400? It was 61 years ago, and the not-nearly successful bids by Rod Carew, George Brett and Tony Gwynn only have underscored what an amazing feat that was.

But to focus too much on Williams' 1941 season risks reducing him to a parlor trickster, just this side of a one-time no-hitter pitcher or a cycle hitter.

The what-might-have-beens, the home runs not hit while he was at war, the fact his teams played for the championship only once, the perceived slights by award voters? All part of the story.

But to suggest that life bilked Ted Williams out of even one swing is to miss the point of his memory, which Friday permeated baseball, where living greats of the game praised him, and reached all the way to the White House, where President Bush noted his wartime efforts before his ball-field exploits.

Someone had to say it, and it was Joe Morgan who did: ``He was a man's man.''

As any baseball legend is supposed to, and more than any baseball star has been able to, Williams stood for American masculinity, stood close to life's home plate and did not flinch at its fastballs.

Ballplayer. World War II flier and Korean War jet pilot. Master fisherman and outdoorsman. Quick and loud with an opinion. Indomitable in a feud - which could pit him against Boston reporters and even his own fans.

The U.S. male, for good and ill.

Sporting of him to see us through one more Fourth of July before saying goodbye.

I've said that no popular phrase, no single famous achievement, can sum up Ted Williams, but maybe one well-known episode does.

That's his decision to play both games of the Boston Red Sox's season-ending doubleheader in 1941, taking the risk that a continuation of a recent slump would drop his average below .3996 - which, rounded off, would make Williams the first .400 hitter since Bill Terry in 1930.

Williams went 6 for 8 to finish at .406 - the highest average since Hornsby in 1924.

The man who once regretted not having become a firefighter, who thought he'd have liked to devote his life to studying a little item called the human brain, wasn't going to back down from a puny adversary like .400.

If you want to save one mental image of baseball's last legend for posterity, let that be it.

Ted Williams, choosing to play.

Ted Williams, choosing to swing.

Ted Williams, right to the end, never getting cheated.

.406: Ted Williams' batting average in 1941, which marked the last time a player has reached the .400 plateau.

.344: Williams' career batting average, which ranks No. 7 all-time.

0: The number of championships Williams won. He played in one World Series, in 1946. The Red Sox lost to St. Louis.

521: Williams' career home run total even though he missed most of five seasons because of military service.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) Ted Williams, a baseball Hall of Famer, Marine fighter pilot and one of the best hitters to play the game, died Friday at age 83.

Photos by Associated Press/Photo Illustration by Daily News Staff

Box:

.406 (see text)