KEN WILLIAMS

A left-handed outfielder from Grants Pass, Oregon, who turned St. Louis Browns summers into counting problems. Kenneth Roy Williams — Ken to the wires — brought power and wheels to Sportsman's Park when the American League was still learning how loud a Brownie bat could get.

The peak was 1922: thirty-nine home runs, one hundred fifty-five ribbies, thirty-seven steals, a .332 clip — the rare early shape of thirty-thirty baseball in plain flannel. He came in hot in 1921 (.347, twenty-four homers, one hundred seventeen ribbies) and refused to cool in 1923 (.357, twenty-nine bombs). Even 1925 still threw twenty-five over the wall.

What stayed in the book was a .319 lifetime average, one hundred ninety-six home runs, and the memory of a Browns cleanup threat who made polite parks feel suddenly small.