American baseball player (1890-1959)
Baseball player
Ken Williams
|
---|
Williams in 1922
|
Left fielder
|
Born:
(
1890-06-28
)
June 28, 1890
Grants Pass, Oregon
, U.S.
|
Died:
January 22, 1959
(1959-01-22)
(aged 68)
Grants Pass, Oregon, U.S.
|
Batted:
Left
Threw:
Right
|
|
July 14, 1915, for the Cincinnati Reds
|
|
August 10, 1929, for the Boston Red Sox
|
|
Batting average
| .319
|
---|
Home runs
| 196
|
---|
Runs batted in
| 916
|
---|
|
---|
|
|
|
|
Kenneth Roy Williams
(June 28, 1890 ? January 22, 1959) was an American
professional baseball
player.
[1]
He played as an
outfielder
in
Major League Baseball
(MLB) from 1915 to 1929. Williams began his major league career with the
Cincinnati Reds
before spending the majority of his playing days with the
St. Louis Browns
, and ended his career playing for the
Boston Red Sox
.
[1]
He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.
[1]
In 1922, Williams became the first player in MLB history to
hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season
.
[2]
Professional baseball career
[
edit
]
Williams began his
professional baseball
career in
1913
at the age of 23, playing for the Regina Red Sox of the
Western Canada League
.
[3]
In
1914
, he played for the
Edmonton Eskimos
before moving to the
Spokane Indians
in
1915
.
[3]
After posting a .340
batting average
in 79 games for the Indians, he made his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds on July 14,
1915
.
[1]
He hit for a .242 average in 71 games for the Reds during the peak of the
dead-ball era
when only 6 players in the league hit above the .300 mark.
[4]
He played in only 10 games for the Reds in
1916
, spending most of the season with Spokane and with the
Portland Beavers
of the
Pacific Coast League
.
[1]
[3]
Williams hit 24
home runs
along with a .313 batting average for Portland in
1917
before being purchased by the St. Louis Browns.
[3]
Williams was drafted into the United States Army in April
1918
, and appeared in only two games for the Browns that season.
[5]
He returned to the Browns in
1919
and hit .300 with 6 home runs in 65 games.
[1]
In
1920
, Major League Baseball outlawed specialty
pitches
such as the
spitball
and experienced a subsequent jump in the league batting averages as well as home runs.
[6]
In Williams' first full season as a regular player in
1920
, he posted a .307 batting average along with 10 home runs and 72
runs batted in
.
[1]
He continued to improve in
1921
with a .347 batting average with 24 home runs, 117 runs batted in and a career-high .429
on-base percentage
.
[1]
Williams had the best season of his career in
1922
, leading the
American League
with 39 home runs and 155 runs batted in, as the Browns finished the season one game behind the
pennant
-winning
New York Yankees
.
[1]
[7]
32 of his 39 home runs were hit at
home
in
Sportsman's Park
.
[8]
On April 22, Williams hit 3 home runs with 6 RBI against the
Chicago White Sox
in a 10-7 victory at Sportsman's Park.
[9]
On August 7, 1922, during a game against the
Washington Senators
, he became the first player in American League history to hit two home runs in one
inning
.
[10]
[11]
His 39 home runs topped
Babe Ruth
, who had led the league the previous four seasons, although Ruth had been suspended well into the 1922 season by
Baseball Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
for violating a curb on
barnstorming
.
[2]
[12]
Williams was one of only two players to break Babe Ruth's twelve-year string in which he led the American League in home runs (the other being
Bob Meusel
).
[12]
Also in 1922, Williams also became the first player in major league history to have 30 home runs and 30-plus
stolen bases
in the same season; a feat which would not be achieved again until
Willie Mays
accomplished it with the
New York Giants
in
1956
.
[12]
In August
1923
, the Washington Senators came into possession of one of Williams' bats and discovered that it had been bored out and plugged with a lighter wood.
[13]
The bat was turned over to National League umpire
George Hildebrand
for investigation and the Senators protested all the victories by the Browns in which Williams had used the bat.
[13]
Williams explained that he had ordered the bat specially made, but when he received it, he found it to be too heavy, so he plugged it with a lighter wood.
[13]
He was cited in the 1924
Reach Guide
for using a
corked bat
, although major league baseball hadn't ruled plugged bats illegal at the time.
[12]
[14]
He finished the 1923 season with a career-high .357 batting average along with 29 home runs and 91 runs batted in and ended the season 15th in
Most Valuable Player Award
balloting.
[1]
[15]
In November 1924, it was rumored that the Yankees were trying to trade for Williams, which would have teamed him with Ruth to make one of the most powerful home run combinations in baseball. However, St. Louis manager
George Sisler
's insistence on the Yankees trading
Waite Hoyt
for Williams was too high a price for Yankees owner
Jacob Ruppert
.
[16]
Williams had another productive season in
1925
, hitting .331 with 25 home runs and 105 runs batted in, and led the league with a .613
slugging percentage
.
[1]
Williams continued to hit well for the remainder of his career with St. Louis until December 15,
1927
, when he was purchased by the Boston Red Sox for $10,000.
[1]
He played two more seasons for the Red Sox, hitting for a .345 average in
1929
at the age of 39.
[1]
Williams returned to the
minor leagues
in
1930
to play two more seasons for the Portland Beavers before retiring in
1931
at the age of 41.
[3]
Career statistics
[
edit
]
In a fourteen-year major league career, Williams played in 1,397
games
, accumulating 1,552
hits
in 4,862
at bats
for a .319 career batting average along with 196 home runs, 916 runs batted in and an
on-base percentage
of .393.
[1]
Of his 196 home runs, 142 came at his home park.
[17]
He retired with a .958
fielding percentage
.
[1]
As baseball evolved out of the
dead-ball era
, Williams finished in the top four in the American League in home runs in seven consecutive seasons (1921?1927). He posted ten seasons with a batting average above .300, and three seasons in which he scored more than 100
runs
.
[1]
As of
2016
, Williams' .319 career batting average ranked 53rd all-time in major league history.
[18]
His .924 career
on-base plus slugging
percentage and his .530 career
slugging percentage
ranked 45th and 48th respectively all-time among major league players.
[19]
[20]
Williams holds the St. Louis Browns / Baltimore Orioles single season record for runs batted in with 155 in
1922
.
[21]
He is the St. Louis Browns' all-time leader in on-base percentage (.403), slugging percentage (.558) and OPS (.961).
[21]
In the 2001 book
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
,
Bill James
ranked Williams as the 50th greatest left fielder of all-time.
[14]
Post-baseball
[
edit
]
Williams returned to Grants Pass and worked as a
police officer
before becoming owner and operator of the Owl Club, a
restaurant
and
billiard parlor
on G Street.
[22]
[23]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
"Ken Williams"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
a
b
Vass, George (August 1999).
20th Century All-Overlooked Stars
. Retrieved
25 October
2010
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
"Ken Williams Minor League Statistics"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
"1915 American League Batting Leaders"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
"Ken Williams To Answer Call For Military Draft"
.
The Deseret News
. 13 April 1918. p. 5
. Retrieved
20 March
2011
.
- ^
Evolution of the Ball
. July 1963
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
"1922 American League Team Statistics and Standings"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
Most Home Runs Hit At Home, One Season
. September 1992
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
"Ken Williams 3-home run game boxscore at Retrosheet"
.
retrosheet.org
. Retrieved
December 25,
2023
.
- ^
"Two home runs in one inning"
.
mlb.com
. Retrieved
27 October
2010
.
- ^
"August 7, 1922 Senators-Browns box score"
. retrosheet.org
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Vass, George (July 2004).
Baseball's Forgotten Stars
. Retrieved
25 October
2010
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
a
b
c
"Two-Piece Bat Of Ken Williams Causes Protest"
.
The Victoria Advocate
. 22 August 1923. p. 5
. Retrieved
20 March
2011
.
- ^
a
b
James, Bill (2001).
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
. New York: Free Press. p.
686
.
ISBN
0-684-80697-5
.
- ^
"1923 Most Valuable Player Award Balloting Results"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
"Yanks Are After Kenneth Williams"
.
The News and Courier
. Universal Service. 12 November 1924. p. 6
. Retrieved
20 March
2011
.
- ^
James, Bill (2001).
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
. New York: Free Press. p.
129
.
ISBN
0-684-80697-5
.
- ^
"Career Leaders & Records for Batting Average"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
26 October
2010
.
- ^
"Career Leaders & Records for On-Base Plus Slugging"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
27 October
2010
.
- ^
"Career Leaders & Records for Slugging Percentage"
. Baseball Reference
. Retrieved
27 October
2010
.
- ^
a
b
"Baltimore Orioles Team Records"
.
mlb.com
. Retrieved
4 October
2011
.
- ^
Grants Pass Daily Courier,
Downtown Tidbits
[
permanent dead link
]
, September 11, 2008
- ^
Josephine County Historical Society,
Looking Back: Ken Williams
, Young at Heart magazine, February 2012, page 10
External links
[
edit
]
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30?30 club (HR-SB)
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40?40 club (HR-SB)
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