Walt Williams

Not many are familiar with the name Walter Allen Williams today. He is a retired gentleman living in Brownwood, Texas, the place of his birth, who volunteers for the city recreation department. Each Saturday during basketball season he controls the scoreboard for youth basketball games. It was here that a met him about a year ago because I am a referee for these basketball games. He is a nice, fun guy who is easy to talk to and has plenty of wisdom. But there is much more to Walt Williams than he lets on. You may be more familiar with the name if you were a Major League Baseball fan in the 1960s and 70s.

Williams played in the MLB from 1964 to 1975. He played for the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, and New York Yankees. He was commonly referred to as "no neck" because he was short (5' 6") and had an incredibly muscular physique (over 30 years after his playing days he still has that muscular physique). He was known as being a very popular, fan-friendly kind of player with an infectious personality. Oh yeah, he was no slouch as a ballplayer either. Williams played outfield and committed just 19 errors in 565 games for an almost unheard of .981 fielding percentage. In 1969 he played for the Chicago White Sox and boasted a batting average of .304, sixth best in the American League. That season he had a strikeout rate of once every 14.3 at bats making him the 5th most difficult player to strike out. On May 31, 1970 he got five hits, two RBIs, and scored five runs in a 22-13 win over the Boston Red Sox. For his playing career Williams appeared in 842 games, got 640 hits, 33 home runs, 173 RBIs, 284 runs, and had a lifetime batting average of .270. In 1988 he was an assistant coach for the White Sox. Last year when I asked him about his baseball playing days he just kind of shrugged and said, "in college I was better at basketball."

Speaking of basketball, today Walt Williams told me a pretty interesting story. Nancy Lieberman is a basketball hall of famer and one of, if not the, best women's basketball player in history. In 1975 while playing with the New York Yankees, Williams said in an interview that he really liked playing one-on-one basketball and that he had never lost a game. Nancy Lieberman, who was living in Brooklyn, New York and had recently been named to the USA Women's Olympic Basketball Team, got word of this and challenged him to a game of one-on-one. Williams accepted and they ended playing in front of over 4,000 fans in New York City. I asked him who won and he looked up at me, paused, and said very matter-of-factly, "I've still never lost a game of one-on-one." I laughed. Later on, between games, we shot baskets together. He's still got a pretty good shot for a 65 year old former pro baseball player. Actually, Walt Williams has a pretty good shot for anyone.