Tough times for Whistler’s Billy Williams

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Tough times for Whistler’s Billy Williams

By STEVE GREENBERG

Chicago Sun-Times

He was a Hall of Fame-bound swatter who would, for a decade of his brilliant Cubs career — from 1962 to ’71 — miss an average of one game per season, never wavering, routinely taking his turns at-bat and delivering excellence.

“Billy Williams never gets excited, never gets mad, never throws a bat,” manager Leo Durocher once said of the Whistler native, one of five Mobilians who have earned a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “You write his name down in the same spot every day, and you forget it. He will play left and bat third. Billy Williams is a machine.”

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