George Williams (October 23, 1939 – May 14, 2009) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professiona ...

second baseman. He played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...

(MLB) for three different teams between the 1961 and 1964 seasons. Listed at , , Williams batted and threw right-handed. He was born in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. Williams entered the majors in 1961 with the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has been Citize ...

, playing for them for one year before joining the Houston Colt .45's in 1962 and the

Kansas City Athletics The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 seas ...

in 1964. In a three season career, Williams was a .230 hitter (31-for-135) with 15 runs and five

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

in 59 games including seven doubles without any

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is ...

s. An 11-season

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in N ...

veteran, Williams hit .277 with 71 homers and 430 RBI in 1,143 games for 10 teams from 1958 through 1968. In between, he played for the

Leones del Caracas The Caracas Base Ball Club C.A. or better known by its commercial name as the ''Leones del Caracas'', is a professional baseball team of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In its creation, its headquarters are the University Stadium of C ...

club of the Venezuelan Winter League during the 1966–1967 season. Williams died from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

in his home city of Detroit at the age of 69.

External links

RetrosheetVenezuelan Professional Baseball League

1939 births 2009 deaths African-American baseball players Bakersfield Bears players Baseball players from Detroit Dallas Rangers players Deaths from cancer in Michigan Deaths from lung cancer Des Moines Demons players Elmira Pioneers players Houston Colt .45s players Indianapolis Indians players Jacksonville Suns players Johnson City Phillies players Kansas City Athletics players Leones del Caracas players American expatriate baseball players in Venezuela Major League Baseball second basemen Oklahoma City 89ers players Philadelphia Phillies players Phoenix Giants players Tacoma Giants players 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people {{US-baseball-second-baseman-stub