Dick Williams To The Hall of Fame

Dick Williams, manager of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox, was one of five people elected by the Veterans Committee to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in balloting results announced yesterday.

Williams took those Red Sox to the World Series and later won two championships with the A's in the early 1970s.

Williams was considered one of the game's toughest managers, and while his stern approach wouldn't go over well in today's game, he seemed perfectly suited for the young '67 Sox. Carl Yastrzemski, who won the Triple Crown under Williams in 1967 but was benched and fined by him in 1969 for not running out a tapper to the mound, congratulated Williams in a statement released by the team.

"It was an honor to play for him," said Yastrzemski.

Williams remembered his days in Boston fondly.

"I had managed their Triple A team for two years at the top level and I got to come up and manage the big league team on a one-year contract the next year," he said. "We were 100-to-1 odds to win it.

"I had a Hall of Fame left fielder, and he was the last Triple Crown winner. I had Jim Lonborg and a lot of good extra players.

"I'm sure I made some people mad. I demanded perfection and I might have stepped on some toes, but I'm sure none of them turned away their World Series checks."