| Buddy Williams cherishes baseball memories and home By John W. Coleman Jr.UMCONNECTION STAFF  Major League Baseballs post-season is underway. As teams compete for the World Series championship, Walter Buddy Williams, the father of Baltimore-Washington Conference Lay Leader Calvin Williams, keeps an eye on the games, but he prefers to recount his own cherished diamond days in the 1930s when he played in the racially segregated Negro Leagues.
Williams, 89, a longtime member of Good Hope Union UMC in Silver Spring, grew up working on the North Carolina farm his father inherited from his grandfather, a freed slave. He played in the Negro Leagues from 1937 to 1941, mostly for the Newark (N.J.) Eagles, but also for the Birmingham (Ala.) Black Barons and Atlanta Black Crackers. Before that, he barnstormed with a half-dozen other pro and semi-pro teams along the East Coast, mostly in Virginia.  Williams is featured in Ill Never Forget, a new book by Fred Keller on the heroes and history of the Negro Leagues. Tall and lean with warm, penetrating eyes and an affable manner, the former right-handed pitcher shows a keen memory as he recalls fellow players and his own exploits.
Williams made $2 a game and had a wicked curve ball that often frustrated such legendary opponents as Josh Gibson, Joe Black, Satchel Paige, Buck Leonard and a young Jackie Robinson. Robinson officially broke baseballs color barrier in 1947 when he joined the all-white Brooklyn Dodgers. But just like The United Methodist Church, Major League teams took years to fully embrace racial integration, a goal not reached until the Boston Red Sox accepted their first black player in 1959. The Negro Leagues continued in operation until about 1960. The problem for many aging former players, however, is that if they did not begin playing Negro League ball by 1947 and did not play for at least four years, they are not eligible for the $10,000 pension Major League Baseball has offered Negro Leaguers since 1997. Williams and several of his peers have appeared in several publications recently, including a lengthy feature in the Sports section of the Washington Post Aug. 23. Titled Empty-Handed, the article reported the financial struggles many former players and their widows are having without the aid of baseball pensions and their appeals for a morsel from the sports storehouse of riches. Many are searching through their belongings for any proof of their years in the league in an effort to qualify for more support. Williams said he receives a small pension but has never let money, or the lack of it, worry him. In fact, he rejected offers from the Brooklyn Dodgers to play for a hefty $7,000 a year in the 1950s. Like many players, he had left baseball to join the Army in 1941 at the outbreak of World War II. But when he returned home to his wife Blanche in 1946, he decided to stay home and raise their growing family. He has no regrets. I sent all six of my kids to college and Im proud of them he said, naming several jobs that helped pay the bills, including 22 years as a custodian for the Montgomery County Board of Education. His sons and daughters chose diverse careers, including teaching, medicine, printing and computer technology. A grandfather and great-grandfather with a deep love for his family, Williams will turn 90 when baseballs regular season returns next April. Occasionally, he can be found standing behind display tables at local memorabilia shows signing autographs, selling souvenirs and recounting highlights of his career to passers-by. He has turned down recent offers to appear at shows in Kansas City and Cleveland. Williams easily dispenses humor and wisdom with a focus on living a stress-free life and valuing the sanctity and sanity of home. Youd better make yourself happy because worrying will kill you, he admonishes. His most heartfelt advice, however, is a familiar adage that he clearly believes in, judging from his decision to cut short his baseball career: Theres no place like home. | 
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