Leo Williams: 34 years with Tri-Co

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call


Step into the basement of Leo Williams' Hellertown home and you can immediately detect many of the loves of his life.

On the wall hang several pictures of family members . . . Leo's Mom and Dad, his wife's parents, his four children and 10 grandchildren, among others . . . all on display. On the shelves, you'll find an elaborate collection of shot glasses. There's over 290 in all, including many from foreign countries, colleges, tourist spots and local taverns.

And, over on a corner table, you'll find several binders and boxes filled with baseball stat sheets and record books. Make no mistake, the 69-year-old retired Bethlehem Steel worker is devoted to his family, his glass collection and his baseball stats.

Williams recently put the final touches on his 34th season with the Tri- County Baseball League - the first eight years were spent on the field as player-manager of the Hellertown entry in the league, while many of the past 26 seasons have been in his basement, where he has diligently worked as the league's statistician.

Those who are involved with amateur baseball leagues such as the Tri- County League are only involved for one reason - a love for the game. Williams is no different.

Satisfying his passion for baseball is the only reason he spends countless hours in his basement figuring out batting averages, walk/ strikeout ratios and divisional standings without getting a nickel in return for his work.

"Sometimes I can spend a whole afternoon down here," said Williams as he glanced over his record books one recent afternoon. "It all depends on how much stuff the mailman brings. All the teams send their boxscores to me after they play a game. Everything comes to me. Depending on how busy the schedule is, the stat sheets can really pile up and I've got plenty to keep me busy. My wife (Grace) wonders what I'm doing down here all of those hours."

Williams says his passion for baseball was nurtured on the sandlots of Ashley, a small town near Wilkes-Barre. There were no organized high school or legion programs in Ashley, so Williams followed his uncles around to games.

"I learned a lot from playing with . . . and listening to . . . older players I met while following my uncles around," said Williams. "Different sections of town had their own teams and if there was a game to be played, I was there."

Williams moved to Hellertown in 1937 when he got a job at the Steel. He immediately dug himself into the Hellertown sports community, first playing on the Young Men's Club and Bethlehem Steel softball teams.

His initial local hardball experience came with the Geyers Sports Club team in the Bethlehem City League. He changed uniforms from summer-to-summer, playing for the Hellertown Hawks, Barons, the Hungarian Catholic Club in Bethlehem and Northampton County Leagues and then spent a year with Tommy's (named for Tommy Ortwein's Bar) in the highly-regarded East Penn League.

In 1954, he began his long association with the Tri-County League.

"A couple of kids here in Hellertown came up to me and asked if I would manage their team in the Tri-County League," said Williams. "The previous manager had left. So, I agreed. I became the manager and everything else . . . groundskeeper, equipment manager, maintenance man . . . you name it.

"We'd play most of our games on weekends. On a Sunday, I'd get up and go to early Mass; come back home and change; go over and fix up the field; come back home for lunch; and then go back over there and play two games. It was hectic."

It was a hectic, but happy time for Williams. With players like Richie Shook, Paul Pavelko, Gordie Hagey, Andy Makarachuk and Mitch Roksiewicz leading the way, Hellertown won league titles in 1958, '59 and '61.

"We had a bunch of kids when we started out, but they got better and we picked up some older, experienced players to help us out," said Williams. "I was a pretty easy-going manager. I only got kicked out of one game and that was by a close friend of mine. We had fun and had some good rivalries back then. But, really, it wasn't the big deal that it is today. There were only four or five other teams in the league."

During the '61 season, Williams said he felt "the ground getting too hard for my legs." All of his work as a player-manager began to "become a drag." So, he ended his playing career and left the Hellertown team.

But, to stay involved with baseball he applied for . . . and was selected . . . to the position of league vice president. In the middle of the 1963 season, he took on the added responsibility as league statistician.

Williams finally dropped his role as VP (he had also served as treasurer and secretary over the years) just last year and was set to make the 1987 season his last as league stat man. However, league president Steve Michael asked him to stay through 1988 - a testimony to the job Williams does.

"For some reason, I've always liked to fool around with numbers and facts and figures," said Williams. "I used to do it all with pen and pencil. Then, a couple years later, Jim Buss (a Morning Call Sports Dept. deskman) told me about The Sporting News' "Ready Reckoner" which had all the percentages in there. Now, of course, I use a calculator and it sure goes a lot faster than it did 20 years ago."

But, while technology has made the calculations go faster, Williams has more stats to keep track of these days. The Tri-County League now has 12 teams and the statistical information he keeps on each player in the league has also expanded. He also handles the player contracts - the official document a player must sign to be eligible to play in the league.

"Keeping the contracts is something I started doing a few years ago," said Williams. "And now I just have them call if they want to make sure a player is eligible. It used to be that they'd have to wait a couple of days until I got the contract in the mail and it had a certain postmark on it."

Williams not only knows all the players, but he knows better than anyone else how well each is doing.

"The phone will ring down here pretty much during the season; often managers wanting to know how this guy or that guy is doing," said Williams. "I have a pretty good idea of who's doing what. All I have to do is get the book out and it's all there."

Williams provides each team with a complete statistical report at the end of the season. He then files each player's records in a binder.

He devised himself many of the forms he uses to keep the records. To a stranger, all the red and blue markings on a player's stat sheet can be as confusing as a New York Times crossword puzzle. However, to Williams, what looks like a maze of numbers is a clear-cut picture of a player's performance. If, for example, you want to know what "Ishky" Fatzinger hit while playing for the Allentown A.A. 10 years ago, or what Larry Miller batted with Fountain Hill in 1973, Williams can tell you in an instant. And, if you want to know how many no- hitters the league has had since 1964, a quick check of one of his pages will tell you the answer is 22.

Admitting that he likes to tinker, Williams says he'll even go into the basement in the winter to dig up facts and figures and he always comes up with a few new and different things.

Williams said he doesn't get out to many Tri-County games, or many other local sporting events, any longer. He does have a TV in the basement so that he can check out the Phils, Mets and Yanks, while he jots down a few Tri-Co numbers. In the fall and winter, Williams closely follows Notre Dame University football and basketball - two more of his life's passions.



keith.groller@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- August 27, 1987

Copyright © 1987, The Morning Call