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***Official RIP Dead Ballplayers Thread -- Yer Out! (1 Viewer)

Raider Nation said:
Texas police: Darryl Hamilton dies in apparent murder-suicide.
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Jesus. :no:
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On June 21, 2015, Hamilton and girlfriend Monica Jordan were found dead in a Pearland, Texas residence, in what appeared to be a murder-suicide. Investigators said it appeared Hamilton had been shot more than once and Jordan died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hamilton and Jordan's 15 month-old child was found alive by police in the home. It was ruled a murder-suicide

 
The Man With No Name said:
Raider Nation said:
Texas police: Darryl Hamilton dies in apparent murder-suicide.
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Jesus. :no:
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On June 21, 2015, Hamilton and girlfriend Monica Jordan were found dead in a Pearland, Texas residence, in what appeared to be a murder-suicide. Investigators said it appeared Hamilton had been shot more than once and Jordan died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hamilton and Jordan's 15 month-old child was found alive by police in the home. It was ruled a murder-suicide
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Damn :(

 
The woman who authorities believe shot and killed former Major League Baseball player and MLB Network analyst Darryl Hamilton, and then herself, at her Pearland home pleaded guilty to arson in 2008 in a case where she believed her then-husband was cheating on her, officials said.

The bodies of Hamilton, 50, and Monica Jordan, 44, were found about 4:45 p.m. Sunday inside the house in the 11500 block of Island Breeze, according to the Pearland Police Department. Police have not released a motive for the shootings.

Police said officers were sent to the home on an emergency call about a disturbance. When they arrived, they found the body of Hamilton near the front entry way. The body of Jordan was found in another part of the home.

Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne said Jordan – then Monica Jordan Richards – had pleaded guilty to felony arson in 2008 after burning down a Brazoria County house and garage where Jordan had been living with her now ex-husband.

Yenne said records indicated the dispute had begun over allegations of infidelity on her husband's part. Initial reports also indicated Jordan had chased him around the house, trying to throw gasoline on him. He was not injured, Yenne said.

"The circumstances were severe, the circumstances were very severe," Yenne said. "I have spoken to my staff every now and then, when we're talking about an arson, I would talk about this case."
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Jeez

 
Billy Pierce 1927-2015

Billy Pierce, the Chicago White Sox left-hander with a blazing fastball who became one of baseball’s leading pitchers of the 1950s, died on Friday in Palos Heights, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. He was 88.

The cause was gall bladder cancer, his son Robert said.

Pierce was only 5 feet 10 inches and 160 pounds or so, but his smooth mechanics enabled him to become a power pitcher with the team then known as the Go-Go Sox, which relied on pitching, speed and defense in an era dominated by the power-hitting Yankees.

Pitching for 18 major league seasons, Pierce won 211 games, was a seven-time All-Star, posted an American League-leading 1.97 E.R.A. in 1955 and amassed 1,999 strikeouts.
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His number was retired by the White Sox.

 
Eephus said:
Billy Pierce 1927-2015

amassed 1,999 strikeouts.
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His number was retired by the White Sox.
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I heard him interviewed on the radio a couple of times. Interesting and very intelligent. He gave a very moving speech at Minnie Minoso's funeral.

As for the bolded part: I wonder if Pierce and Dale Murphy commiserated about their numbers being one short of a milestone.

 
The Man With No Name said:
Joaquin Andujar 1951-2015

Andújar was a four-time MLB All-Star and a Gold Glove Award winner.

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25294735/former-cardinals-pitcher-four-time-all-star-joaquin-andujar-dies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_And%C3%BAjar
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This one hurts.

I won't repeat too much of what I posted in the Cardinals thread about Andujar. He was an event on the mound and at the plate. Rooting for him was like rooting for a race car that would either take the checkered flag or crash while going for it.

All that cocaine consumption caught up with him in about August of 1985. The Cardinals don't win the 1982 World Series or make the 1985 playoffs without him. Not bad for a guy acquired mainly to pitch against Montreal in the 1981 pennant race.

Spillover benefit: STL gave up CF Tony Scott to trade for Andujar. This move opened up a need for CF in the organization, a position STL filled after the 1981 season by trading P Bob Sykes to the Yankees for a skinny minor league CF named Willie McGee.

 
Eephus said:
Billy Pierce 1927-2015

Billy Pierce, the Chicago White Sox left-hander with a blazing fastball who became one of baseballs leading pitchers of the 1950s, died on Friday in Palos Heights, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. He was 88.

The cause was gall bladder cancer, his son Robert said.

Pierce was only 5 feet 10 inches and 160 pounds or so, but his smooth mechanics enabled him to become a power pitcher with the team then known as the Go-Go Sox, which relied on pitching, speed and defense in an era dominated by the power-hitting Yankees.

Pitching for 18 major league seasons, Pierce won 211 games, was a seven-time All-Star, posted an American League-leading 1.97 E.R.A. in 1955 and amassed 1,999 strikeouts.
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His number was retired by the White Sox.
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Missed this one. RIP.I was an undersized LHP as a little leaguer, and after my first pitching win my coach nicknamed me "Pierce" after Billy Pierce. I have a customized Strat-O-Matic pitcher's card with my name on it modeled after Pierce's 1955 season.

 
Hall of Fame broadcaster Milo Hamilton has died at age 88, according to the Houston Astros. He broadcasted in Major League Baseball for 60 years.

Hamilton suffered a heart attack back in 2007, but underwent a successful angioplasty at the time and was able to continue his broadcasting full-time with the Astros through 2012.

Hamilton also worked for the Orioles, Cardinals and Cubs early in his career before settling in with the Braves. Hamilton covered the Braves from 1966-75, during which time he'd have his signature broadcasting moment, calling Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th career home run:

Hamilton moved on to the Pirates in 1976, where he'd stay until going back to the Cubs for the 1980 season. After the 1984 season, Hamilton was replaced by the Cubs and moved onto the Astros. With Houston, Hamilton would spend the rest of his career. He was the top play-by-play broadcaster for the Astros from 1987-2012.
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:(

@OldHossRadbourn: Some large-eared fellow claims he's doing the catching around here now. Talks like a sage. Can hit a pitch 2' off the plate. Oh, he'll do.

 
The funny quotes and nickname almost overshadow what a great ballplayer Berra was. His career rWAR is 59.5 which is in the same neighborhood as more recent catchers like Bench, Carter and Piazza. Berra's B-R comps list is very impressive (not sure how Aramis Ramirez snuck in there though)

1.Johnny Bench (906) *

2.Gary Carter (842) *

3.Carlton Fisk (834) *

4.Miguel Tejada (827)

5.Mike Piazza (824)

6.Aramis Ramirez (804)

7.Ted Simmons (803)

8.Ron Santo (795) *

9.Vern Stephens (785)

10.Ken Boyer (780)

MVPs can be a bit of a beauty contest but he won three and finished top five on four other occasions. He caught a ton of innings by modern standards. He caught over 1200 innings in five of seven years starting at age 25 (and logged 1089 and 1172 in the other two). Yadier Molina is the current measuring stick for workhorse catchers and he's never caught 1200 innings, even with the 162 game season. I don't what the BBWAA was thinking in 1971 when they didn't elect Berra on his first year of HoF eligibility.

 
Dean Chance 1941-2015

Dean Chance, the 1964 Cy Young winner and a recently inducted member of the Angels Hall of Fame, has died. He was 74. Chance was found unresponsive at his home on Sunday morning, a family member told the Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record.

Chance made his major league debut on Sept. 11, 1961, late in the Angels inaugural season. A 6-foot-3 right-hander, Chance was a two-time All-Star and a two-time 20-game winner. In 1964, Chance was 20-9 with a 1.65 ERA, winning the Cy Young Award at a time when there was only one winner, rather than one for each league. At the time, the 23-year-old Chance was the youngest pitcher ever to win the Cy Young, a distinction he held until Dwight Gooden won the award at age 20 in 1985. Chance and Bartolo Colon, who won in 2005, are the only Angels pitchers to take the award.

Chance spent six years with the Angels, compiling a 74-66 record and a 2.83 ERA. Chance’s Angels career was notable for his exploits off the field, as well. He and Bo Belinsky were known for hanging out in Hollywood circles with movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

In December 1966, Chance was traded to the Minnesota Twins as part of a five-player trade, with Chance as the headliner. In his first year with the Twins, Chance enjoyed his second 20-win season. He led the league with 18 complete games and 283 2/3 innings. He spent three seasons with the Twins before pitching for three teams – the Cleveland Indians, New York Mets and Detroit Tigers – over the final two years of his career.

Chance, who retired at age 30, said his unique delivery – his back turned to the plate – led to the early end to his career."Considering my motion, the stress it put on my arm, I was tickled to death to get 10 years in," Chance told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. "I had nothing the last three, but I'd turn my back and the hitters didn't know if that one pitch was coming again. "When it finally got to a point where I couldn't do physically what I could still do mentally, it was bye-bye. No one had to tell me. I won my last four games, but it wasn't any fun."

In his retirement, he founded and served as president of the International Boxing Association. He also owned a company that operated carnival games.
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His 1964 season is a WIS mainstay

 
Neill Sheridan, an outfielder in the old Pacific Coast League who supposedly hit the farthest home run in history, died Thursday in Antioch. He was 93.

Mr. Sheridan died peacefully while surrounded by family members a month after suffering from pneumonia, said his granddaughter Tami Hopkins.

In his 12-year pro career in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Mr. Sheridan played mostly in the PCL, including several stints with the San Francisco Seals and one with the Oakland Oaks - and played two games for the 1948 Boston Red Sox, striking out in his only major-league at-bat.

"Ted Williams and I were talking, and Joe DiMaggio comes out and asks me if I'd like to meet Babe Ruth,” said Mr. Sheridan, reminiscing about a day in spring training for a Chronicle story published in January 2014.

A Sacramento native, Mr. Sheridan grew up in Berkeley, played football at USF and joined the Seals in 1943, playing for legendary manager Lefty O’Doul, who Mr. Sheridan called “Mr. San Francisco.”

His best PCL season was 1947 when he hit .286 with 16 homers and 95 RBIs, which prompted a trade to the Red Sox. He met Ruth in the spring of 1948, shortly before the Babe died, and got called up late in the season.

“Regrets? No. Quite a thrill, really,” Mr. Sheridan said of his short big-league experience.

In 1953, while playing for the Sacramento Solons, Mr. Sheridan hit a ball 613.8 feet, as legend has it, the longest homer in history up to that point.

According to accounts in the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union, a man said he had found the ball in the back seat of his car with the rear window smashed. A parking lot employee claimed to have heard glass break at the time of the homer.

The Solons measured the distance at 620 feet and hired a local surveying company for a more precise reading: 613.8 feet.

Mr. Sheridan’s career ended a year later. He worked at an Orinda grocery store and Pleasant Hill liquor store and lived with his wife Irene in Pleasant Hill more than 60 years.
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http://deadspin.com/reports-former-braves-pitcher-tommy-hanson-dies-after-1741640748

MLB pitcher Tommy Hanson died late Monday night after suffering catastrophic organ failure and falling into a coma. The news was first reported by Zach Klein, sports director of Atlantas ABC affiliate, and later confirmed by the Braves.

Hanson finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2009, posting an 11-4 record with a 2.89 ERA. He spent four seasons in Atlanta, and last pitched in the majors for the Angels in 2013. He had minor league stints with the Rangers, White Sox, and Giants in the past two seasons, but never pitched well enough to break back into the majors.

There are no details yet on what caused Hansons catastrophic organ failure. He was 29.

 
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Limp Ditka said:
http://deadspin.com/reports-former-braves-pitcher-tommy-hanson-dies-after-1741640748

MLB pitcher Tommy Hanson died late Monday night after suffering catastrophic organ failure and falling into a coma. The news was first reported by Zach Klein, sports director of Atlantas ABC affiliate, and later confirmed by the Braves.

Hanson finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2009, posting an 11-4 record with a 2.89 ERA. He spent four seasons in Atlanta, and last pitched in the majors for the Angels in 2013. He had minor league stints with the Rangers, White Sox, and Giants in the past two seasons, but never pitched well enough to break back into the majors.

There are no details yet on what caused Hansons catastrophic organ failure. He was 29.
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Wow. Heard about this this morning on the radio. Very sad.

 
Limp Ditka said:
http://deadspin.com/reports-former-braves-pitcher-tommy-hanson-dies-after-1741640748

MLB pitcher Tommy Hanson died late Monday night after suffering catastrophic organ failure and falling into a coma. The news was first reported by Zach Klein, sports director of Atlantas ABC affiliate, and later confirmed by the Braves.

Hanson finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2009, posting an 11-4 record with a 2.89 ERA. He spent four seasons in Atlanta, and last pitched in the majors for the Angels in 2013. He had minor league stints with the Rangers, White Sox, and Giants in the past two seasons, but never pitched well enough to break back into the majors.

There are no details yet on what caused Hansons catastrophic organ failure. He was 29.
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Wow. So young. So sad.
 
Seeing all his Braves teammates and other friends around MLB express their shock and sadness today on twitter. Sounds like he was a great guy. A couple of them—Kimbrell and Medlen— seem inconsolable.

 
Gus Gil

Playing career

Gil was a sure-handed fielder with a career fielding percentage that was 8 points higher than the league average over the span of his playing career.[1] Unfortunately, like many infielders of his time, Gil was a light hitter, and his major league career coincided with what has been called the second deadball era, when batting averages and run production in both leagues were at an unusually low level.[2] He was signed as an amateur free agent by the Cincinnati Reds in 1959.[3] He spent the next seven seasons playing in the minor leagues before being purchased by the Indians in 1966.[4] He joined the Indians' major league club in 1967, at the age of 27.[1]

Career highlights include a game-tying, two-run pinch hit double in the top of the ninth inning against the New York Yankees, then scored to put the Pilots ahead to stay, winning 5–4 (June 14, 1969);[5] a walk-off, two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth for the Brewers as they came from behind and defeated the Minnesota Twins, 4–3 (June 23, 1970);[6] drove in both Milwaukee runs with a pair of sacrifice flies in a 2–1 win over the Kansas City Royals (July 5, 1970);[7] hit the only home run of his major league career, a solo shot against Chicago White Sox left-hander Jim Magnuson (August 5, 1970).[8] In the 1970 Caribbean Series, he hit .387, scored four runs, and had a series-leading seven RBI, to help the Magallanes win the series, marking the first time a Venezuelan team had won the Caribbean title. In the 1973 Caribbean Series, Gil earned a spot on the series' All-Star team.

Career statistics

In a four-year major league career, Gil played in 221 games, accumulating 87 hits in 468 at bats for a .186 career batting average along with one home run, 37 runs batted in and an on-base percentage of .272.[1] His performance as a fielder was much better, with 186 putouts, 192 assists and 36 double plays, but only 5 errors out of 383 total chances for a .982 fielding percentage.[1] After his playing career, he served as manager for the Aguilas del Zulia in the Venezuelan Winter League in 1979.[9] He also managed the Danville Suns in 1982, and the Bluefield Orioles in 1990 and 1991.[10][11][12]

In between, Gil played winter ball with the Industriales de Valencia, Navegantes del Magallanes and Cardenales de Lara clubs of the [[Venezuelan Professional Baseball League|Venezuelan Leage in a span of 19 season from 1959 t0n1977.

In 2008, Gil was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame.[13]

Gil died in 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona, at the age of 76.[14]

 
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Ken Johnson 1933-2015

No-hitters themselves are not all that uncommon. Almost 300 of them have been pitched in the big leagues, and even their famous subset, perfect games, has 23 entries.

Five times in the major leagues’ modern era, a team has given up no hits and failed to win. But in perhaps the game’s starkest good-news-bad-news case, only once did a single pitcher complete a nine-inning game without yielding a hit and still manage to lose it. The man who owns that two-faced distinction, Ken Johnson, whose otherwise middling 13-year career in the major leagues included stints with seven teams, died on Saturday in Pineville, La. He was 82.

His son Kenneth Jr. said that his father had been bedridden with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and that he died after contracting a kidney infection.

For three seasons in the heart of his career, 1965-67, pitching for the Houston Astros and the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves (the franchise moved after the 1965 season), Johnson was an effective starter, going 43-27 with 26 complete games. It was earlier, however, on April 23, 1964, that while pitching for Houston (then known as the Colt .45s) against the Cincinnati Reds, he claimed his spot in history.

A right-hander who featured a knuckleball to go along with a fastball and breaking pitches — “He always said it was the knuckler that got him to the big leagues,” his son said — Johnson pitched a brilliant game, walking just two, striking out nine and mowing down a lineup that included two All-Stars, catcher Johnny Edwards and shortstop Leo Cardenas; a future Hall of Famer, Frank Robinson; and the eventual career hits leader, Pete Rose.

The Reds hit only three balls out of the infield. In the top of the ninth inning, however, Johnson helped author his own undoing; with one out, he fielded a bunt by Rose and threw wildly to first, allowing Rose to reach second. Rose scored two batters later on an error by second baseman Nellie Fox.

Joe Nuxhall, who allowed five hits for Cincinnati, completed his shutout. Nuxhall was himself the answer to a baseball trivia question. In June 1944, more than a month before turning 16, he pitched two-thirds of an inning for the Reds against the Cardinals, becoming the youngest player ever to appear in a major league game.
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Monte Irvin 1919-2016

Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, a power-hitting outfielder who starred for the New York Giants in the 1950s in a career abbreviated by major league baseball's exclusion of black players, has died. He was 96.

The Hall of Fame said Irvin died Monday night of natural causes at his Houston home.

Irvin was 30 when he joined the Giants in 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Irvin spent seven of his eight big league seasons with the Giants and one year with the Chicago Cubs in 1956. A native of Haleburg, Alabama, Irvin played in the Negro, Mexican and Puerto Rican leagues during his 20s.

Irvin finished with a career average of .293 and 99 homers in the majors.
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Irvin was the 8th oldest living MLB player (and 2nd oldest Hall of Famer) at the time of his death. Tom Jordan who caught for three AL teams in the mid-40s moves into the top ten.

 
Eephus said:
Monte Irvin 1919-2016

Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, a power-hitting outfielder who starred for the New York Giants in the 1950s in a career abbreviated by major league baseball's exclusion of black players, has died. He was 96.

The Hall of Fame said Irvin died Monday night of natural causes at his Houston home.

Irvin was 30 when he joined the Giants in 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Irvin spent seven of his eight big league seasons with the Giants and one year with the Chicago Cubs in 1956. A native of Haleburg, Alabama, Irvin played in the Negro, Mexican and Puerto Rican leagues during his 20s.

Irvin finished with a career average of .293 and 99 homers in the majors.
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Irvin was the 8th oldest living MLB player (and 2nd oldest Hall of Famer) at the time of his death. Tom Jordan who caught for three AL teams in the mid-40s moves into the top ten.
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Huh, there is a Wikipedia page with the oldest living players.

Mike sandlock number one at 100 years old.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_living_Major_League_Baseball_players

 
Frank Malzone 1930-2015

Frank Malzone, a six-time All-Star third baseman whose steady presence in the Boston lineup tied together two of the city’s baseball eras, linking Ted Williams’s Red Sox with Carl Yastrzemski’s, died on Tuesday at his home in Needham, Mass. He was 85.

Malzone played with the Red Sox from 1955 to 1965, not a period of distinction for the franchise — the team never finished higher than third — even though it was led by two future Hall of Fame outfielders: Williams, who retired in 1960, not having played in a World Series since 1946, and Yastrzemski, who arrived in 1961 and finally led the team to a pennant in 1967. As one Boston hero passed the torch to the other, Malzone was a stalwart supporting player for both.

He was remarkably durable, playing in more than 150 games in seven consecutive seasons, including 475 games in a row. In the 1957 season, he played 42 more games at third than anyone else in the American League, handling so many more chances that he led the league in both errors and fielding percentage. As a hitter, Malzone swung a solid if not spectacular right-handed bat. His career average was .274, but he batted .280 or better in five of his first seven full seasons, 1957 to 1963, and knocked in more than 90 runs three times, including 103 in 1957.

He made the All-Star team in each of his first four full seasons. In the second of two All-Star Games in 1959 (from 1959 to 1962 there were two All-Star Games annually), he hit a home run off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, a future Hall of Famer, and in his last All-Star appearance, in 1963, he batted cleanup for the American League.

Early in his career, Malzone was perhaps the best defensive third baseman in baseball. He won a Gold Glove in 1957, when that annual award made its debut and was given to just one player at each position in the big leagues. From the next year on, a Gold Glove has been given to the best fielder at each position in each league; Malzone won the American League award in 1958 and 1959, and if Brooks Robinson — who won the next 16 in a row while playing for the Baltimore Orioles — had not come along, he might have picked up a few more.
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Walt (No Neck) Williams 1943-2016

http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf/2016/02/cleveland_indians_of_my_youth.html

13comments
Cleveland Indians of my youth and a summer with Walt Williams -- Terry Pluto


19659209-mmmain.jpg


CLEVELAND, Ohio -- He hated the nickname. That's something baseball fans should know about Walt Williams, a Cleveland Indians outfielder in 1973.

His nickname was "No Neck." He was 5-foot-6 and listed at 165 pounds. My guess is that he was closer to 185 when he was playing with the Tribe.

Williams died Saturday of a heart attack. He was 72 years old.

As a child, he received a typhus injection. For some reason, they gave him the shot in his neck. He believed it led to his different physique, one where he indeed had very little neck.

Fellow players began calling him "No Neck." Soon, it was in the media.

Williams dealt with it, just as he handled all the scouts who said he'd never make the Majors being only 5-foot-6.

He just smiled and pushed harder to prove they were wrong.

In five minor league seasons, Williams batted .329 (.833 OPS). He didn't hit for a lot of power. He rarely walked. But when he was hot, he was a line drive machine.

For most fans, there was no reason to remember Williams. He was a journeyman, a backup outfielder for much of his career.

Later in life, few would believe he ever played in the Majors. He certainly didn't look the part.

THE REAL WILLIAMS

The bottom line on Williams was that he was a wonderful man.

How do I know all this?

Because in 1973, I got to know Walt Williams.

He had just been traded to the Tribe. I was a senior at Benedictine High. My close friend, Frank Sarmir, would go to games with me. For a few bucks, we sat in left field at the old Stadium.

Williams would talk to fans. He'd wave at them between innings.

We became casual friends. We waited outside the clubhouse for him and talked.

Once, he gave us a box of baseballs that had been used in batting practice, so we could play with them.

A DIFFERENT ERA

Williams signed in 1963 with the Houston Colt 45s. That was their nickname before they became the Astros.

When with the Tribe in 1973, Williams was making $26,000 according toprobaseballreference.

He hit .289 (.722 OPS) with 8 HR and 38 RBI for a Tribe team that was 71-91. It was the typical 1970s Indian summer of low payroll, small crowds and no chance to contend for a pennant.

It also was the summer when I first got to know a big league player.
It also was the summer when I first got to know a big league player.

Frank and I mentioned to Williams that we planned to go to watch the Tribe play in Detroit.

First, he said he'd leave us tickets for the game. We wondered if we could visit with him before the game.

He invited us to come up early in the afternoon. The Tribe stayed at the old Sheraton Cadillac in downtown Detroit, and Williams said to go to the lobby and call him.

We did, and he invited us up to his room. He was wearing a cabby cap and had huge bushy sideburns. The television was on, he was watching an old black-and-white gangster movie. He had a newspaper spread out on his bed, where he was relaxing.

We sat around for about an hour with him. I don't recall much of what we talked about.

I do remember him saying the hotel had a fire escape and that guys coming in after the midnight curfew would sneak up the stairs and avoid the lobby -- so the coaches would not see them coming in late.

The hotel had that baggy-eyed look of an old building that was still stuck in the 1930s Depression. Big League baseball was not all 4-star hotels back then.

LIFE DOES GO ON

After the 1973 season, Williams was traded to the New York Yankees. It was part of a three-way deal, Jim Perry coming to the Tribe.

I lost track of Williams. I was going to college, he was trying to keep his big league career alive.

He played in the Majors from 1964-75. His career average was .270 (.675 OPS) with 33 HR and 173 RBI in 492 games.

Then came two years in Japan, two more in the Mexican League.

It's hard to know for sure, but it's doubtful that he ever made more than $250,000 playing baseball.

I'm talking about for his career ... minors ... majors ... elsewhere.

Williams later became a minor league manager. He was a coach with the White Sox for one season.

He lived in Brownwood, Texas, where he often helped kids at the local community center. In doing some research for this column, I found a story in the Sarasota Tribune about how Williams would volunteer to council and encourage kids -- at Chicago's Cook County jail.

At another point in his life, he worked on customizing cars.

He was like the rest of us, he worked for a living. Baseball was not a ticket to wealth and prestige for most players of his era.

When he was managing in the minors, I once wrote a column about Williams and his kindness for Baseball America. I was told that Williams read it, but didn't remember me.

That's probably because he was so nice to so many people for so many years.

I had always meant to track down Williams and thank him.

I never did. And yes, I wish I had.


 
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Phillips would have made a ton of money if he played in a more analytically aware era.  His 50.8 career rWAR is higher than a bunch of Hall of Famers.

 
Jim Davenport 1933-2016

Jim Davenport, an infielder who played third base for most of his career with the San Francisco Giants and battled the Yankees in the World Series in 1962, the first time the Giants had played in one since they left New York, died on Thursday in Redwood City, Calif. He was 82.

The cause was heart failure, the Giants announced.

Davenport was a Giant for most of five decades — as a player, a coach and a manager — beginning in 1958, the team’s first season in California.

A right-handed hitter who was often in the leadoff spot, he took the Giants’ first at-bat on the West Coast, according to The San Jose Mercury News, and played alongside stars like Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda.

Davenport had 10 game-winning hits in 1969 and retired after the 1970 season with a career batting average of .258.
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