A member of three Warren High School baseball championship teams, Bill Servant had his best year in 1949, when he was named an All State shortstop and then helped lead the Warren Post’s American Legion nine to the National semi-finals.

Bill earned nine letters (in baseball, basketball, and football) at Warren High.  In baseball he played for Warren’s 1946 Class C and State Champions, 1947 Class C Champions and State Runners-Up, and the Class C Eastern Division Champions of 1948.  In his senior year of 1949 he starred in the famous (or maybe infamous) playoff for the Class C Eastern title, in which Bristol’s Colt Memorial scored four times in the ninth inning to win, 4-3.

He was named All Class C in 1948 and then the next year was honored as All Class C and All State shortstop. 

Bill also received Class C football honors in 1948, when he scored the Redskins’ touchdown in a 6-6 tie with Colt Memorial, the only time that Colt did not defeat Warren during a period of seventeen years.

Bill was the All Star shortstop in the Warren Twilight Baseball League in both 1947 and 1948, hitting .464 and .545, respectively.  He won the league’s batting championship in the second of those two years.

In 1949 he was Warren High School's Journal-Bulletin Honor Roll nominee.

In 1949 Warren Post sponsored an American Legion Baseball team that featured players from both Warren and Bristol.  The team won the Rhode Island and Regional Championships before losing in the National semi-finals.  Bill was one of the team’s stars and was the Regional Batting Champion, banging out three triples and a home run.

Bill played baseball and football at the University of Rhode Island, where he was labeled “a throwback to the old-style college player.”  He also played minor league baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates, after which he served as the Warren Community Services playground director in both the 1950s and 1960s.   

Pictures from Hall of Fame archives