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My Brother Jimmy excerpted from Chapter One: My Life in Baseball
I don't know if there's anyone in the game of baseball with whom I have more of a history, or to whom I'm closer, than Jimmy Williams. He's almost like a brother to me, considering that his association with my family dates back to 1947.
Jimmy and my brother Bill both signed with the Dodgers in '47, and they played the outfield together and roomed together at Danville in '48. I played against Jimmy when we were both in the Texas League in the late' 50s. In the early '60s, when he was managing in the Dodger organization and, of course, I was managing in the Oriole organization, Jimmy was at Grand Forks in the Northern League when I was at Aberdeen, South Dakota. In the early '70s, he was at Columbus, Georgia, in the Houston organization, when I was at Asheville, North Carolina, in the Southern League.
After that he came over to our organization, managed Cal at Double A Charlotte in 1980, and came to the big leagues as a coach in 1981. He and I were both coaches on the Oriole club from '81 to '86, and he was my third base coach in '87, when both Cal and Bill were on the club. And he would've been my third base coach in '88 too, if Mr. Edward Bennett Williams, the owner, hadn't been so insistent on making a change.
Jimmy is like part of the family. We're still close -- Jimmy lives in Joppa, which is just fifteen miles down the road, and he and his wife and Vi and I play a lot of golf together.
Jimmy was a very good teacher and a very good instructor, and he was a good manager and a good coach. He was just a good baseball man. He was brought up in the Dodger organization, which is a very fundamentally sound organization, and he was as responsible as anyone for making the Orioles a solid organization.
He was a very well-rounded baseball man. He managed in the minor leagues at the time when you didn't have coaches, so he was the manager, the pitching coach, the hitting coach, the infield coach, and the outfield coach. I went through that same training process.
Jimmy was always very careful not to favor the top prospects on his club. If he was running a drill, he wouldn't just involve the most highly regarded players on the club, he'd bring in other players so that he'd keep the loyalty of all his players. That's just the mark of a good baseball manager.
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