Billy Williams- the Overlooked Baseball Hall of Famer

Billy Williams may have had the most overshadowed and quiet career of anyone in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Over the course of his sixteen full seasons in Major League Baseball, Billy Williams knocked in at least 84 runs for thirteen consecutive seasons, and he clobbered at least 20 homers fourteen times. Billy Williams never made it to a World Series, but he was as reliable as any player of his era with men on base. Williams played in a then National League record of 1,117 straight contests at one point, won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 1961, and a batting title at the age of 34 in 1972.

Born in 1938 in Whistler, Alabama, Williams was signed by the Cubs as a free agent in 1956. He was a .300 hitter at every stop in the Chicago minor league chain and when he arrived in Houston of the American Association, none other than Rogers Hornsby worked with him as a batting instructor. Hornsby told the Cubs that they had a player in the left-handed hitting Williams, and Billy was up with Chicago for good in 1961. He hit a respectable .278, knocking in 86 runs on 25 round trippers. Williams was voted the Rookie of the Year in the senior circuit over Joe Torre of the Braves, but hardly anyone took notice as this was the season that Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle staged their classic home run chase.

In 1962, Williams began a string of nine years in a row in which he would have at least 612 at-bats. He was a beacon of steadiness on a decent Cubs squad that could never make it over the hump and grab a pennant. Williams had seven seasons with RBI totals in the nineties, and a trio of one hundred runs batted in campaigns; his first came in 1965. On July 17th, 1966, Williams hit for the cycle against the Cardinals, and in September of 1968 he belted three home runs in one game against the Mets, this after hitting a pair the contest before. The total of five in two games tied a major league record.