COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Billy Williams played his last game for the Cubs in 1976. It was the 100th year of the Cubs, the bicentennial of our nation, the summer that his teammate, center fielder and U.S. Marine Reservist Rick Monday, snatched an American flag away from two intruders, father and son, about to set it on fire on the Dodger Stadium grass.
Now it is 2026. The Cubs are celebrating their 150th season. The country is turning 250. The flag that Rick Monday saved is currently on display for the first time in all its frayed and faded glory in the baseball Hall of Fame here in this upstate New York village.
And Billy Williams, 49 years after being inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, is marking his 88th birthday.
“I look at 88 and I say, ‘You’re gettin’ old, boy,’ ’’ he said by phone from his home in Glen Ellyn, “But then I think about, you know, God has protected me to get this far. And you know, I’ve seen grandkids. And now I’ve got three great-grandkids, So I look at that and say, He has spared me, to see my family grow.
“There’s still some time I got to be on earth. You think about it. You think about it because you think about how long you’ve lived and what you’ve learned through the years and what you could teach your kids and grandkids. What it’s all about, you know.
‘‘You don’t get out of this world alive, nobody. You think about it. That’s why, matter of fact, I went to church this morning, and I tried to give praise and thanks. Because I was taught that by my grandfather, and taught that by mother, She inspired me, and I’m inspiring them to do these kinds of things. So 88, 88 is a nice age.”
Surely, you knew there would be stories. Too many to contain in a single column by your Sun-Times scribbler. Allow us to share a few more.
Nailed it: A bat that went 8-for-8
Jon Shestakofsky, the Hall of Fame’s vice president of communications and content, has taken his visitor downstairs into the vault, which contains precious baseball artifacts that are not currently on exhibit. Donning plastic gloves, he hands your correspondent, who also puts on gloves, the bat that Billy Williams used when he went 8-for-8 in a double-header against Houston: 4-for-4 in the first game, 4-for-4 in the second.
“If you look down here,’’ Shestakosky said, pointing to the handle just below the Louisville Slugger label, “you can see there are nails.’’
Nails?
”Oh, that happens when you get a bat that fits you,’’ Williams says. “I had small hands. The handle was pretty good. It was comfortable to me. And I think it was a little cracked and stuff because somebody might have used it, some right-handed hitter might have used it. The grains had come up a little bit, and I think Yosh [Kawano, the legendary Cubs clubhouse man] might have stuck a couple of little nails in there.”
’’The rule book does not make allowances for hammering nails into a bat.
I probably went up there swinging it where the umpire couldn’t get a good eye on it,’’ he said, chuckling. “That was a good bat.”
Murcer learns about Wrigley’s winds
Billy 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, with 38 in 2019, has come close.
Bobby Murcer, a left-handed-hitting center fielder who played for the Cubs in the ‘70s and once hit 33 home runs for the Yankees, hit 27 in 1977, his first season with the Cubs, then hit just nine the following year.
Like many folks who don’t live in Chicago, Murcer thought the wind always blew out at Wrigley Field.
“I say to him, ‘Well, when Ernie [Banks] and I retired, the wind changed and started blowing in,’ ’’ Williams said, laughing.
Billy vs. Bob Gibson
It ranks among the greatest Opening Days in franchise history, Two Hall of Famers on the mound, Bob Gibson for the Cardinals, Fergie Jenkins for the Cubs. Seven future Hall of Famers combined in the two lineups, Billy Williams among them.
April 6, 1971. The wind was blowing in. The temperature hovered around 40. The game was tied 1-1 and went into extra innings. Fergie was still pitching for the Cubs, Gibson for the Cardinals. It may have been the season opener, but both were pitching brilliantly.
Williams won it with a walk-off home run off Gibson in the bottom of the 10th. “Sometimes this game will drive a man crazy,’’ Gibson said afterward.
Williams, whose 10 career home runs off Gibson are the most by any player, would see Gibson frequently when Hall of Famers gathered for the annual induction ceremony. Did Williams ever remind Gibson of his home run?
“I’m laughing because we never talked about that,’’ Williams said. “He never mentioned that. You know he would never mention that. But while he was living, I didn’t mention it too much, either. He might have got a ball up there and knocked me down.’’
Bleacher creatures
Sorry, St. Louis. Long before a bunch of college kids from Texas showed up in your bleachers, took their shirts off, whipped them overhead and started the “Tarps Off” fad that’s showing up in ballparks all over the country, Wrigley Field had its Bleacher Bums.
Billy Williams was there for the birth of the Bums in 1969, when the Cubs, who spent most of the ‘60s playing in front of crowds the size of a family picnic, made a run for the pennant in ’69 and inspired a new generation of fans who turned the Wrigley bleachers into their personal playground, parading on top of the outfield wall, serenading their heroes, taunting the opposition, and occasionally toppling onto the field.
Those yellow baskets attached to the fence that catch home runs? That was not what they were designed for. They were there to keep overserved fans from taking headers onto the grass below.
“A lot of people up there were school teachers, who had the summer off. I remember one guy used to play the trumpet, couldn’t hit a single note, he just played.
“I used to have fun with them because they knew I drove a Wildcat Buick and every time I went out there they called me ‘Wildcat Willie.’ It was a fun time out there because they had a great time.’’
A better time than the Cubs, who blew a big lead in August and finished far behind the Miracle Mets.
And Billy’s favorite memory of all
The fondest memory of all? It was the time they held Billy Williams Day and he brought his mother, Jesse May Williams, the woman who raised her family and took young Billy to the homes of the white folks whose washing and ironing and housekeeping she would do.
“She got a chance to be on the field with me,’’ he said, “and she enjoyed that moment. She said, ‘I’m going to be on that field with 40,000 people and I’m a gonna fall out.’ I said, ‘You’re not going to fall out, you’re not going to faint.’ She brought her sister with her.
“I look at those pictures from time to time. That was a special moment for me.’’