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McCraw spent eight big-league seasons attempting to figure out this crazy game. And then, just when it looked as if perhaps he never would, there he was one afternoon, sitting on Williams' bench in the summer of 1971 as the Senators were playing his former team, the Chicago White Sox.
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"Knowing who Ted Williams was, knowing all about his great career, and then to play for him," McCraw says. "I don't know why he chose to do what he did with me.
"We were in Chicago playing the White Sox. Bart Johnson was pitching. I had been traded from the White Sox over the winter."
There were runners on first and second in the eighth inning of a close game, and Williams took a walk down the dugout, looking for a pinch-hitter. He spotted McCraw.
"Get your bat," Williams barked.
McCraw got his bat.
"Sit your ass down," Williams growled. "I'm not going to let that kid throw his fastball by you."
McCraw obediently sat down.
But the big, intimidating manager kept staring. He stood over McCraw, glowering.
"I oughta send your ass up and let him throw that fastball right by you," Williams growled again.
McCraw today: "Now I was mad. The umpire came over to the dugout and said he needed a hitter. So Ted says, 'Go up there so he can throw that fastball by you.'
"So I go up to the plate to hit, and now there's no way he was going to throw that fastball by me. He could have shot the ball out of a howitzer, he wasn't going to get it by me."
First pitch, McCraw belted a home run. Johnson walked a circle around the back of the mound, screaming the whole way as McCraw rounded the bases.
"He was cursing at me, saying, 'You old bastard!'" McCraw says. "And Ted was on top of the dugout steps when I got there. He hugged me. He told me, 'That's the way to hit a fastball!'"
Perhaps nothing could make the best hitter who ever lived more proud. A gruff and cranky manager had found a player he could place his faith in. An unsure veteran had found a legend's soft spot.
From that day forward, the two talked hitting every day. Most days it was for no more than five minutes. But McCraw couldn't soak up enough.
What McCraw had never realized was that hitting is as much mental as anything else. Williams preached to him the gospel of getting a good pitch to hit. Hear that, kid? Get a good pitch.
"Everybody back then always talked about raising your hands or lowering your hands," McCraw says. "He talked about looking for a good pitch to hit. That's the key. That turned things around for me. Seven years in the big leagues, I finally realized, shoot, look for a fastball.
"He made me understand that I'm in control of the at-bat, not the pitcher. My selection of the pitch is my choice. I'm not defending against what the pitcher might throw. It was beautiful."
A delicious new world suddenly was beckoning. McCraw went home to Los Angeles after the season and couldn't get Williams and his advice out of his mind.
"That winter, I said, 'If it's that simple, I'm going up every time and looking for fastballs, at least until I get two strikes," McCraw says. "I'd drive by my exit thinking about what he said."
