What is a TERWILLIGER?

I loved his name and his nickname—Terwilliger and TWIG!

WILLARD WAYNE TERWILLIGER, born June 27, 1925, in Clare, Michigan, of Dorris and Ivan Terwilliger, homemaker and bar owner, was a Marines Combat Soldier in WWII (Battle of Saipan and in Iwo Jima) and then returned home to play baseball at what is now known as Western Michigan University. He also excelled there in basketball and football!

He signed with the Chicago Cubs in 1948, made his “debut” in 1949 and hit for a .242 average with 10 home runs and 13 stolen bases in 1950, and long cherished a photograph of Jackie Robinson congratulating him for hitting a game-winning pinch-hit single against the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field after being traded to the Dodgers in a 1951 multiplayer deal.

So, if these were the highlights of his playing career, why am I writing about him?

#1. I always loved watching his enthusiasm when he coached for the Texas Rangers and admired the things which he unashamedly represented and honored. He was a GOOD MAN and a good example for people to emulate! Mr. Terwilliger remarked more than once that “nothing in his 62 years of baseball was more important than his years in the military.”

#2. I loved his name and nickname. I remember the first time I heard him announced as “Wayne, the Twig, Terwilliger” and then later one time as “Willie Wayne Terwilliger, the Twig.”

#3. He began his professional baseball career in 1948 and finally said “sort of good-bye” to the game he loved in 2010, though he still kept up with the game and players as much and as often as he could! (He managed the Fort Worth Cats to the 2005 Championship of the Independent Central League at age 80 years and stayed on to Coach the team for five more years after that—even still “hitting flies” to them and instructing players how to properly anticipate, catch, and throw.) *I hope to still be able to walk when I am 80 or 85 years old!*

Oh, yeah, at age 88, he worked bagging groceries in a Brookshire’s Grocery Store in Willow Park, according to his wife, Linda.

Before the “later” days, he played 9 seasons of major league ball for five different teams and “backed up” Jackie Robinson at 2nd base! He also played for the Senators, Athletics, and the Giants. Some of his teammates were Duke Snyder, Willie Mays, Pee-Wee Reese, and Roy Campanella.

Moving on to the first time I saw him, we go back to the days when Ted Williams was the Manager of the 2nd Washington Senators and the 1st Texas Rangers—and then I saw him many times after that when he returned to coach the Texas Rangers again for five seasons in the 1980s.

Maybe interesting to note, he only missed one year of baseball during his “storied” career, and that was when he “ran” the family bar in Michigan in 1974.

But that wasn’t the end of his major league coaching; he was a coach for the Minnesota Twins and received Championship Rings when the team “won it big time” in 1987 and 1991. (World Series)

Maybe another reason I liked him so much stemmed from the fact that he did not look exactly like a “big, strapping baseball player.” In fact, I read that a writer named Pat Jordan in 2001 in the New York Times gave this description of Mr. Terwilliger—“With a big head on a small body and bags under his eyes, he looks like an aged ‘Tweety Bird’ in a baseball uniform.” (Of course, in 2001, he was already 75 years of age!)

And, I must close with one final quote. Byron Smith, Fort Worth Cats infielder on the 2005 Championship Team, said, “No one thinks of him as an old guy until someone ‘says something.’ He’s excited about being on the field and makes us ‘young kids’ excited to be here!”

Oh, yes, he also hit a game-winner off legendary Satchel Paige!

The “TWIG” recently left this life at age 95 after a brief stay in the hospital, but I believe those he “touched” will never forget him.