Walt Williams

Crap, crap, crap. Walt Williams died Saturday at the age of 72.  He was and most likely always will be my favorite ballplayer of all time.

Not to say I was thrilled when the White Sox traded for him in December of 1966, sending catcher John Romano and a minor leaguer to the Cardinals for Williams and pitcher Don Dennis.  Romano mostly rode the bench for the Sox behind Sherm Lollar, until he was traded to Cleveland in 1960.  There, he made the All-Star team in two of his first three seasons while the Sox basically hoped their pitching could hit well enough to make up for the lack of offense from the catching sport.  Then, in true White Sox fashion, we reacquired Romano in 1965, once he’d reached the age of 30.  Here’s the really sad part—nobody on the Sox hit more than Romano’s 33 homers the next two seasons.  Who was this Williams’ guy other than some hotshot minor league hitter?

I found out one day early the next season when Jack Brickhouse did an interview with the rookie outfielder on his Tenth Inning show.  Everything was “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” “I can hit a little, I guess,” the last in response to Brickhouse noting that he had 54 doubles with a .330 batting average in the minors the year before.  I should also note here that Williams stood all of 5’6” with a real fireplug build.  Oh, and he always hustled, out to his position in  left or right field and back, or after hitting any groundball or pop up, no matter how routine; he also treated fans like they were friends.  From the day of that interview on, I rooted for Walt Williams to hit .400 and smash 62 homeruns.  That, or at least crack the starting lineup.

Williams played six years with the Sox, hitting .304 in 1969 and .294 in 1971.  Two years later, we traded him to the Indians for the immortal Eddie Leon.  After time in Cleveland and the Bronx, Williams played in Japan for a couple of seasons, then Mexico.  His lifetime batting average of .270 translates into a career WAR of 2.4, and you know what you can do with that number.

From all the above, you might expect me to say that all athletes should act the way Walt Williams did, with the inference being that all black athletes should especially.  That’s not the message I’m interested in giving.  Walt Williams played with a combination of joy and humility rarely seen in everyday life, let alone sports.  Here was someone with a God-given talent who didn’t act like he was God’s gift.  And that was years before I learned Williams had lost an infant son to meningitis while a ballplayer.  Put another way, Walt Williams was the person I wanted to be like on my best days.

I was happy when the Sox brought back Williams as a first base coach in 1988, but I never made any effort to contact him.  That waited until Clare was nearly six in August of 1997.  Williams was managing the Altoona Rail Kings in the now-defunct Heartland League, and the Rail Kings were visiting the Will County Cheetahs.  I made some calls, bought some tickets and arranged to meet my hero.

He looked just like Walt Williams and acted just like he did as a member of the White Sox.  He signed a ball I have with the autographs of various Sox players, putting his name next to Luke Appling’s.  “He could hit,” said Williams of the Sox all-time hit leader.  “I liked him.”  Then Williams, ever gracious, posed for a picture, standing next to me with Clare in between us.  I wanted my daughter to see you didn’t have to be a giant to be an athlete.

I also wanted her to see something else.  Maybe she did.