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Lefty Williams

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Baseball Player

The Resume

    (March 9, 1893-November 4, 1959)
    Born in Aurora, Mississippi
    Birth name was Claude Preston Williams
    Pitcher for the Detroit Tigers (1913-14) and Chicago White Sox (1916-20)
    One of the ‘Black Sox’ who threw the 1919 World Series
    Banned from Major League Baseball for life

Why he might be annoying:

    His three losses in the 1919 World Series were a record (since tied).
    After his first loss, he and catcher Ray Schalk got into a fistfight under the grandstand.
    It has been claimed that he tried to back out of the fix, but before his third start he ran into an associate of gambler Arnold Rothstein, who threatened his life – and his wife’s – if he made it past the first inning. However, ‘Eight Men Out’ author Eliot Asinof admitted to having invented the story as a copyright trap to detect theft of his work.
    He became a heavy drinker after being banned, and reportedly took nips on the mound while pitching in outlaw leagues.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was left handed (as you probably guessed).
    He received only half of the $10,000 he had been promised for helping to throw the Series -- $200 less than the per-player bonus for winning the Series would have been.
    His wife commented, ‘He was wrong, but he was only a youngster when it happened. All those others were doing it, and he didn’t understand what it really meant.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2022, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 72 Votes: 43.06% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 14 Votes: 35.71% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying