Cubs legend Billy Williams celebrates his 88th birthday with pride, enthusiasm and memories

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Billy Williams, the greatest left-handed hitter in Cubs history and the man who held the National League record for consecutive games played for 14 years, turned 88 on Monday.

“When you think about that franchise, and how long it has been around, and he’s basically the best left-handed hitter in the history of that franchise, that’s a pretty amazing thing to consider,” said Josh Rawitch, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“He’s a little more reserved, and maybe he doesn’t get all the attention some of the other Hall of Famers get, but he’s every bit the iron man that Cal Ripken was, and the superstar that Ernie Banks was. He just did it in a different way.”

This was Sunday, the day before Billy’s birthday. A visiting writer from Chicago to the Hall of Fame in this upstate New York village stood in front of Williams’ bronze plaque, which hangs between those of fellow sluggers Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell, and placed a call to Williams, who had just returned to his Glen Ellyn home from church.

“May I read your plaque to you?” the caller asked.

Williams has been back to Cooperstown almost every year since 1987, the year he was inducted. He has come with his parents, his wife, his three brothers and now his four grandsons. He has read these words many times:

When he hears these words, what does he feel? What does he think of?

“Well, I think of all the people who have played Major League Baseball,” he said. “And, of course, there’s only a few who play that many years to be inducted in the Hall of Fame. When I was inducted, I sit on the podium, I sit up there with Ted Williams, Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, and because it was the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson [breaking baseball’s color line], I kind of surrounded my speech [with] the anniversary.

“Sitting behind me was the commissioner, [Happy] Chandler, who was commissioner at the time when Jackie played. After my speech, he said, ‘You know, there’s many guys who have talked about when Jackie came in the league. You’re the only one who had it right.’ ”

From Mobile to Montgomery

Last week, Rawitch sent Williams a birthday card, writing that he hoped to see him at next month’s induction ceremonies, when center fielders Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones, who were elected by the writers, and second baseman Jeff Kent, who was elected by the Contemporary Era Committee, will be inducted.

Sending birthday greetings to Hall of Famers is one of the cooler parts of Rawitch’s job.

“One of the things I think is really unique about Billy,” Rawitch said, “is that he is one of five Hall of Fame players born in Mobile, Alabama, which is the most of any city in the country. To come from the same place as Hank Aaron and Satchel Paige, Willie McCovey and Ozzie Smith, that’s a crazy bit of information that I think most people don’t realize.”

Williams grew up in an era in which most everyone played baseball, including the Black kids in a segregated Alabama. It grieves him that there are so few Black Americans in the big leagues today. They’re playing football and basketball.

“I don’t know what the future looks like,” he said.

Then he was told about Braden Montgomery, the biracial outfielder from Mississippi who last week had a historic big-league debut with the White Sox, hitting a walk-off home run. In spring training, Montgomery announced his goal was to be in the Hall of Fame.

Williams loves it.

“Man, that’s great,” he said. “Braden Montgomery, huh? Well, if he’s from Mississippi, that water we used to drink, [that] all the good hitters in Mobile drink, I think that stream goes down through Mississippi and down through that area where he’s from. And when you talk to him, tell him I think he’s drinking some of that water, too.

“You know, when I played, you see kids come up to the major leagues and say, ‘I’m happy to be in the major leagues.’ They’ve got to think like Braden Montgomery, you know. ‘I want to go further than just being in the major leagues. I want to do good in the major leagues.’ When he sets the tone high like that, you know he’s shooting for the stars.”

Truer words

Having made Chicago his permanent home, Williams is a Bears fan, too.

“That quarterback, he’s a great player, isn’t he?” Williams says of Caleb Williams. “Plus, he’s got a real good name on his back.”

When Bears coach Ben Johnson’s “Good, better, best, never let it rest” chant became all the rage in Chicago, Billy Williams smiled. He had recited those very words in his induction speech decades earlier. Miss Lily Dixon, the principal of his grade school in Whistler, just outside of Mobile, used to exhort the students with those words at the school’s weekly assembly.

“Those words stayed with me many, many years,” Williams said. “And if they inspire the Bears, that’s great.”

Never far from the fun

These days, when Williams wants to go to a Cubs game, Crane Kenney, the team’s president of business operations, sends a car to pick him up.

When Williams saw former Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo shed his shirt in a “Tarps Off” moment earlier this month, he walked a couple of days later into owner Tom Ricketts’ suite, where Rizzo was sitting, and announced he planned to do the same. He didn’t follow through.

Williams is the only left-handed hitter in Cubs history to hit 40 or more home runs in a season, hitting 42 in 1970. Only Kyle Schwarber, who hit 38 in 2019, has come close.

In all of his years with the Cubs, Williams never played with a center fielder like Pete Crow-Armstrong.

“He’s exciting, ain’t he?” Williams said. “His outfield play is outstanding. He should stack his trophy case with Gold Gloves, because that’s the kind of outfielder he is. And I think he might win a couple, two or three batting titles before he’s through.

“When I first saw him, I saw the speed. I saw a Lou Brock, that kind of player. . . . He could be a catalyst for this organization.

“You know when they say, ‘You can’t do this?’ I think he says, ‘Yes, I can.’ ”