Billy Williams Quotes

I cannot but feel that the one man, above all others, who deserves the eternal thanks of his own race, and all thinking people, for bringing about baseball’s greatest reform, is Jackie Robinson himself…Certainly baseball people should be eternally grateful for the contribution he made to his own people, and to the game.

I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.

Were it not for Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey would be remembered, if at all, as a Bible-thumping midwestern Methodist windbag who neither played baseball on Sundays when he was a mediocre catcher for the St. Louis Browns and the New York Highlanders, nor attended games on the Sabbath as a baseball executive.

I guess what really made me a Dodgers fan from the beginning was that the team had Jackie Robinson, the first 'Negro' in the major leagues.

Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation.

All though I didn't meet him. His legend and his saga and his story is just that. Jackie Robinson, we all have to tip our hat to him. Because he made the game available to guys like me.

It was a breaking period for black people coming into baseball, and how many followed depended on Jackie's conduct. But that's not the case now. What and how I do doesn't mean nearly as much as what and how Jackie did.

There weren't many black players when I was growing up, and I remember playing and looking up to the ones that were playing.

One of my heroes growing up was Jackie Robinson. My mom, an ardent baseball fan from whom I got my love of the game, had an old baseball card of his from the 1950s and told us his amazing story of courage in integrating baseball.

Poitier opened the doors to so many artists, not just black artists. There is a line that goes from black to Latin to Asian with regards to roles.

When Ozzie Virgil became the first Dominican player in the majors, his nationality was barely noticed. What the press and fans talked about was his skin color. He was the first black player on the Detroit Tigers, and a great deal of attention was paid to him as someone who crossed the color line.

There is an incredible film, 42. It's the incredible story of Jackie Robinson. I have extolled the virtues of this movie to everyone I meet. I've given quotes to everyone I talk to.

It would be extraordinary if the BBC were to make me the first black 'Doctor Who;' it would be extraordinary.

Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.

But yet I don't think I should be labeled just a black quarterback, because it's bigger things in this sport that need to be accomplished.

When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career.

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

I think every group of black guys should have at least one white guy in it.

I don't think baseball owes colored people anything. I don't think colored people owe baseball anything, either.

What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.

If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.

After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

Colored people come in all colors.

Television had a black president long before Barack Obama.

The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.