Billy Williams still loves baseball. He always will, even though some of the changes that have taken place in the game concern him. And he’ll always be a Cub, even though he spent a short amount of time with the Oakland A’s. He still goes out to Wrigley Field on occasion, where a flag flies with his retired No. 26 and a statue of him greets fans arriving for ball games.
The 84-year-old Whistler native, one of five Mobile-area players enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, recalls his time at home and in the Big Leagues fondly. In a recent telephone interview with Lagniappe, Williams — a career .290 hitter with 426 home runs, 88 triples, 434 doubles and 1,475 runs scored in 2,488 Major League games — said he is looking forward to the upcoming Hall of Fame weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y., a trip he tries to make every year.
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