Ted Williams championed Negro League players in his 1966 Hall of Fame speech

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Sixty years ago, the famed Red Sox slugger used his Cooperstown speech to champion Black players who were excluded because of the sport’s color barrier

When Ted Williams, the last man to hit .400, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he had an iconic career to reflect on. But he decided to dedicate a portion of his speech to championing Black players who had been excluded because of baseball’s longtime color barrier.

“I’ve always been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, to have struck out or to hit a tape-measure home run,” Williams said in his 25 July 1966 speech – 60 years ago Saturday. “And I hope that someday the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way could be added as a symbol of the great Negro players that are not here only because they were not given a chance.”

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