Ken Williams

Kenneth Roy Williams (June 28, 1890 – January 22, 1959) was an American professional baseball player. He played as an outfielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1915 to 1929. Williams began his major league career with the Cincinnati Reds before spending the majority of his playing days with the St. Louis Browns and ended his career playing for the Boston Red Sox. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He became a full-time player at the age of 29 with the Browns in 1919. In 1922, Williams became the first player in MLB history to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season.

Professional baseball career Williams began his professional baseball career in at the age of 23, playing for the Regina Red Sox of the Western Canada League. In , he played for the Edmonton Eskimos before moving to the Spokane Indians in . He hit for a .242 average in 71 games for the Reds during the peak of the dead-ball era when only 6 players in the league hit above the .300 mark. He played in only 10 games for the Reds in 1916, spending most of the season with Spokane and with the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League. He returned to the Browns in 1919 and hit .300 with 6 home runs in 65 games. In Williams' first full season as a regular player in 1920, he posted a .307 batting average along with 10 home runs and 72 runs batted in. 32 of his 39 home runs were hit at home in Sportsman's Park. On April 22, Williams hit 3 home runs with 6 RBI against the Chicago White Sox in a 10-7 victory at Sportsman's Park. On August 7, 1922, during a game against the Washington Senators, he became the first player in American League history to hit two home runs in one inning. His 39 home runs topped Babe Ruth, who had led the league the previous four seasons, although Ruth had been suspended well into the 1922 season by Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis for violating a curb on barnstorming. Williams was one of only two players to interrupt Babe Ruth's 12-year string of leading the American League in home runs, the other being Bob Meusel in 1925. Also in 1922, Williams also became the first player in major league history to have 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in the same season; a feat which would not be achieved again until Willie Mays in .

In August 1923, the Senators came into possession of one of Williams' bats and discovered that it had been bored out and plugged with a lighter wood. The bat was turned over to National League umpire George Hildebrand for investigation, and the Senators protested all the victories by the Browns in which Williams had used the bat. He finished the 1923 season with a career-high .357 batting average along with 29 home runs and 91 runs batted in and ended the season 15th in Most Valuable Player Award balloting.

In November 1924, it was rumored that the Yankees were trying to trade for Williams, which would have teamed him with Ruth to make one of the most powerful home run combinations in baseball. However, St. Louis manager George Sisler's insistence on the Yankees trading Waite Hoyt for Williams was too high a price for Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert.

Williams had another productive season in 1925, hitting .331 with 25 home runs and 105 runs batted in, and led the league with a .613 slugging percentage. He retired with a .958 fielding percentage. His career .924 on-base plus slugging (OPS) and .530 slugging percentage ranked 50th and 51st, respectively, all-time among major league players. Williams holds the St. Louis Browns / Baltimore Orioles single season record for runs batted in with 155 in . He is the Browns' all-time leader in on-base percentage (.403), slugging percentage (.558), and OPS (.961).