Bucky Williams

Who was Bucky Williams?

Wallace “Bucky” Williams was a Negro League Baseball player and, at the time of his death, the second oldest living former Negro League player behind 104-year-old Emilio Navarro. Williams was a team member for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays in 1936. He was known to play earlier with the Pittsburgh Monarchs.

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, a son to Joseph and Mathilda Williams. At the age of six months he moved to Pittsburgh and was a member of St. Charles Lwanga Parish in Pittsburgh’s East End. His wife, Marjorie, whom he married in 1936, died in 1976.

Williams worked after his Negro League playing days with the Edgar Thomson Steel Works of U.S. Steel in Braddock, Pennsylvania, where he played ball. He is an honorary member of the Negro League Hall of Fame. In 1995, he traveled to Kansas City for a gathering of Negro Leagues players. To celebrate his 100th birthday a party was held December 16, 2006 at the Churchill Country Club that was attended by family, friends and local community members.

Williams died one month before his 103rd birthday, on November 16, 2009. He is interred in Calvary Cemetery in the Pittsburgh's Hazelwood neighborhood.