1935

Edwin Dibrell Williams was born on January 19, 1910, in Greenbrier, Arkansas. Dib went to Conway High School in the larger nearby city of Conway and then went to Oklahoma State for two years, then to Oklahoma A&M, where he played football and basketball. But it was baseball he really wanted to pursue, and in January 1929 he left college.

Dib was something of a sensation at the Little Rock Travelers training camp. Though hardly 19 at the time, he had grown to six feet and was strong enough to hit and throw with the best of them and the Travelers started him at first base when the season opened. With the 1929 Little Rock Travelers, Dib played in 140 Southern Association games, batting .264.

He had attracted the attention of major-league scouts and before the season was over the Philadelphia Athletics grabbed him. He made Connie Mack‘s Athletics in 1930 and served as backup second baseman. Still only 20 years old until January 1931, he appeared in 67 games and hit for a .262 average.

Mack didn’t make many changes for 1931, and it turned out he hadn’t needed to. They won 107 games, and won the pennant again, finishing 13 1/2 games ahead of the second-place New York Yankees. Dib got into more games,  bumping up his average a bit to .269. The Athletics and the Cardinals matched up again in the 1931 World Series, this time it going the full seven games and St. Louis coming out on top. Dib played shortstop in every game.

The American League standings flip-flopped in 1932, with the Yankees finishing 13 games ahead of Philadelphia. Dib struggled in the springtime, batting only .207 by the end of May. He then was  back in a backup infielder role, playing in 62 games, many more of them at second base than shortstop, hitting a less-productive .251.

When it came to 1933, he re-established himself at shortstop, batting .289. In 1934, he hit better, in his limited time at .273 in 66 games. After the season, he traveled with Connie Mack,  Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer and others, as part of a ball team that visited Hawaii, Shanghai, Manila, and Japan.

He was 1-for-10 in the early going of 1935. Dib was only 24, but the Red Sox did see potential and in May, they purchased rights to his contract from Philadelphia. He was to be a utility reserve and his versatility saw him work 30 games at third base, 29 games at second base, 15 at shortstop, and one at first base. He accumulated 283 plate appearances in 75 games and hit .251.

He battled for a place on the Sox during spring training in 1936, but was optioned to Syracuse in March. He played nine more years in the minors, but never got back to the big leagues.

In 1941, he was player/manager of the Class-B Decatur Commodores in the Three-I League, and hit .342 while playing in 123 games. 

Late in 1942, he joined the war effort by joining the United States Army. He trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, became a sergeant serving in a tank battalion during the war, moving on to Fort Knox and Fort Ord.

After the war, he managed the Augusta Tigers in the South Atlantic League and in late December, he signed to manage Lancaster for 1948. The team finished in last place and Dib was replaced before the year was over. It was his last year in baseball.

He then worked as a farmer in Greenbrier, specializing as an egg producer with the Greenbrier Egg Co.