Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

At the time, the African American population of Minnesota was small. Only about 4,000 of Minnesota’s nearly two million residents were African American, and more than ninety percent of them lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But African American baseball teams did play in Shakopee, including the St. Paul Colored Gophers and the St. Paul Quicksteps.

In 1887, the Shakopee Reserves played against the St. Paul Quicksteps, which was an African American team. “An announcement in the Western Appeal prior to the game on August 20 announced that the Quicksteps were to ‘leave the Union Depot at 8:30, and all who wish to go are invited. Fare for round trip $1.40.’” The Reserves won, 23-4.

One African American baseball player, William “Billy” Frank Williams, played on over twenty teams in the Midwest, including the Chaska White Diamonds, the Knoblauch Lands Carver team, and the Shakopee Browns. He played with the Browns in 1898.

After his baseball play at the Shakopee Browns, he played at Carver and Chaska. In the May 2, 1907 Chaska Herald, the city’s semiprofessional White Diamonds baseball team, named after Chaska’s White Diamond-brand flour, was ready to take the field. And it had a new standout player.

“The most notable addition is that of ‘Billy’ Williams, the great colored first sacker, who played such phenomenal ball at Carver the past two years,” reported the Herald.

Many celebrated baseball players have passed through the area over the decades. However, one of the greatest athletes to wear the Carver and Chaska jersey was William “Billy” Frank Williams according to Mark W. Olson in 2016.

Billy Williams loved playing baseball.

Billy Williams loved sports. As a high school student, he put in star performances in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field.

But baseball was his favorite.

Billy Williams was born on October 24, 1877, in the shadow of the state capitol in St. Paul. His father was George Williams, of West Indian descent, who migrated from New York to St. Paul. He was a steward on a steamboat line that made frequent runs between St. Louis and St. Paul, where he met Barbara Smith Williams, whose parents were immigrants from Germany.

Mark W. Olson, in an article in the Chaska Herald in 2016, noted that by the turn of the century, Williams’s name was popping up in the daily newspapers as a standout Twin Cities baseball player.

Billy was a popular amateur baseball player in Minnesota. He was also asked to join the Baltimore Orioles. Of course, they did not want him to play as an African American player. They wanted him to pass as an American Indian to avoid racist opposition. They assured Williams that it would be easy to for him to impersonate an Indian because he was “light complexioned, has an aquiline nose, and straight hair.” But Billy was extremely proud of his heritage, and he did not want to ignore the African American part of him.

While Billy loved baseball, he realized that it might not be in the cards. In 1904 Governor John Albert Johnson offered Williams a position as an assistant in the governor’s office.

Billy finally decided to assist the governor. Billy was a great athlete, but he also wanted to do what was right. Williams was adept as an administrator and based on his mother’s wish to take care of his family, Billy served 14 Minnesota governors for over 53 years.

Williams’s legacy was made outside of the baseball diamond.

“I don’t want to take anything away from his baseball, because they said he was a great baseball player, but I think his influence at the State Capitol helped change things,” noted Frank M. White in the book They Played for the Love of the Game.

On November 13, 1963, Billy Williams passed away following a long illness.

The flags on all Minnesota State buildings were flown at half-mast in his honor. He had retired in 1957 after spending 52 years (1904-1957) as the executive aide to 14 consecutive governors.

Bibliography

Chaska Herald, 2 May 1907.

Olson, Mark W. Chaska Herald, 2016.

White, Frank M. They Played for the Love of the Game. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016.