Colton Hall of Fame Inducts Two More

COLTON >> Colton inducted Thomas Williams and the Colton Mercury baseball team to the Colton Hall of Fame on Friday, April 22. Thomas Williams was the first inductee of the night. There to accept the honor was Williams friend, Dr. Bob Person. “Tom was always a Hall of Fame person and now he is a member of the Colton Hall of Fame and it’s long over due.” Following the acceptance speech Person unveiled the plaque that will forever cement his place into the Hall of Fame. Williams was a college basketball player at Colton High School. He played two years of basketball at San Bernardino Valley College before transferring to UCLA to play for John Wooden, and then transferred to University of California Santa Barbara the following semester. Williams earned team MVP and was also inducted into the University of Santa Barbara Hall of Fame. After playing semi-professional basketball for the Santa Maria Golden Dukes, Williams coached basketball at Ramona High School from 1956 to 1967. The Rams won six Citrus Belt League titles under Williams, who was also named Citrus Belt Coach of the Year six times. Williams was also inducted into the Ramona High School Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2013, Williams passed away at the age of 81. 2015 Colton Hall of Famer Roy Cook Jr. was Williams’ high school teammate and wrote a letter for the ceremony even though he was not able to attend due to illness. “He was a stand out basketball player who’s abilities far exceeded the abilities of anybody on his team or on the teams he played against. Tommy was my basketball idol, hero, and person that I wanted to emulate,” said Cook. The final Inductee of the night was the Colton baseball team, The Mercury. The team began in 1939 as a group of men that wanted to play baseball. When World War Two stared many of the players left to fight in the war and when the war was over they came back to play for The Mercury. The Mercury roster consisted mainly of Hispanic-American players. Mel Salazar had the honor of inducting The Mercury into the Hall of Fame. “The team I think is an institution, like the Los Angeles Dodgers and The New York Yankees. We are not inducting just the original fifteen players but every player, the team as a whole. We are honoring the team. The roster would change over time but the love of the game and the commitment to the city remained consistent,” said Salazar. Five members of the 1939 team were in attendance for the Hall of Fame ceremony. The players got on the stage to receive the award and one of the original members of the 1939 Mercury team, Socorro Rosales, unveiled the plaque that will be hung in the Hall of Fame. The players present and past were more family than teammates. The plaques and past members of the Colton Hall of Fame can be seen at the Gonzales Community Center in Colton.