David Williams was born on March 12, 1979, in Anchorage, Alaska. He graduated from Caesar Rodney High School in Camden, DE in 1997. He also played baseball at Delaware Tech Community College in Georgetown, DE. He is married to Chelley and on September 12, 2003, the couple had their first child, daughter Katie.

I chatted in person with Mr. Williams during the Reds Caravan before the 2006 season. I had enlisted the help of Jake, a Pirates' blogger to get some good material for questions. It went something like this:

RHM: You were one of the best pitchers Pittsburgh had to offer last season. It must have been pretty surprising to learn that you'd been traded. What was the first thing out of your mouth when you got the news?

DW: The first thing I thought was “who else got traded” because I knew that Casey was considered the mayor of Cincinnati and I figured there must be three or four other players involved in the trade. When I found out it was just me, it was awesome to just be in the same breath as a guy like that. I know I have some big shoes to fill, and I don't really feel like I'm filling them. They brought me over here to win games and that's what my focus is going to be. All the other stuff will just play out the way it's going to play out.

Jake seemed to think that Williams uttered a wordy dird when he discovered he was traded. That may well be the case, but it's no shock that he didn't talk about it in front of hundreds of Reds fans evaluating him for the first time.

RHM: Are you going to miss the pranks that Jack Wilson played in the clubhouse?

DW: Nah, he didn't play any on me personally. The guys that we had had little feuds with each other and would go back and forth, but I never really got pranked by them. But I'm going to miss being around a guy like that and there are also some other guys that I'm going to miss. On the field, it's going to be me against them and off the field it's going to be different, obviously.

RHM: Are you worried about any pranks here in your first year? You think they might make you run out of the bullpen dressed as a woman?

DW: They're not. I don't see them messing with me too much, and if they do, I'm just going to have to get them back, I guess. Or not. ::laughing::. I'm looking forward to going down to spring and meeting everybody, honestly.

According to Jake, Williams' rookie prank was that he had to wear a dress on the team plane. He's just lucky he wasn't around for when the Reds made their rookies wear Hooters' uniforms. He wouldn't have looked nearly as good as Luke Hudson did in that tank top.

RHM: At the special request of the Pirate's blogger who helped me with these questions, I'm suppose to ask whether Kris Benson ever let you drive his yellow Ferrari.

DW: Oh no. I saw it; it's nice, but I don't think I could drive a car like that.

RHM: OK, I've got just one more then I'll leave you alone. Just what size shoe do you wear?

DW: What shoe size? 12 1/2.

There's some back story to this one too, but I'm not supposed to tell it. You can probably guess the gist, though. And 12 1/2 ain't bad. Not that I'd know.

Dave Williams is a left-handed starting pitcher at the bottom of the Reds’ rotation. Williams is best known to Cincinnati fans for being the player the Reds received from Pittsburgh in exchange for fan favorite and helluva guy Sean Casey.

Williams was among the best pitchers for the Pirates, racking up 10 of the teams 67 wins last season. Unfortunately, being among the best pitchers for the Pirates isn’t saying all that much, as evidenced by the 67 wins last season. According to my own game wraps, Williams appeared in seven games this spring and failed to dominate, though in his last appearance of the spring he settled down to give up just three runs on six hits through five innings, which seems worthy of his spot as fifth starter.

For the complete statistical analysis, you want Williams’ Better Know a Red feature on JinAZ On Baseball and the Reds.

Dave Williams is a left-handed starting pitcher at the bottom of the Reds' rotation. Williams is best known to Cincinnati fans for being the player the Reds received from Pittsburgh in exchange for fan favorite and helluva guy Sean Casey.

Williams was among the best pitchers for the Pirates, racking up 10 of the teams 67 wins last season. Unfortunately, being among the best pitchers for the Pirates isn't saying all that much, as evidenced by the 67 wins last season. According to my own game wraps, Williams appeared in seven games this spring and failed to dominate, though in his last appearance of the spring he settled down to give up just three runs on six hits through five innings, which seems worthy of his spot as fifth starter.

For the complete statistical analysis, you want Williams' Better Know a Red feature on JinAZ On Baseball and the Reds.

Since the majority of Reds fans stopped paying attention to the 2005 team sometime in September, there might be a lot you missed. So for your recapping convenience, each day this week I'm going to link to a few of the highlights from the off-season.

Today let's review what went down in September and October 2005:

• I played paparazzi with some of the Reds' wives during Raquel Aurilia's CD sale to benefit hurricane victims. I would later review the single, review the album, and interview the artist.
• Joel and my joint project to create demotivational posters for major league teams was a big hit.
• Javy turned 30.
• Readers got the opportunity to try their hand at general managing the Reds with the Reds Choose Your Own Adventure. A better, enhanced version of the Choose Your Own Adventure also appeared in Funnyball, an increasingly irrelevant book of fake news and other tidbits from Red Hot Mama in 2005.
• We made up some really high quality captions for a photo of a Cardinals fan.
• The World Series happened.