More and More, It Looks Like Williams Will Leave Yankees

Bernie Williams says he’s having fun. He says he’d be a fool not to be enjoying this team he’s playing on and this time he’s playing in. He is as honest and as decent a man as can be found in a Yankees clubhouse full of honest and decent people. But the way he says it makes it sound just like a lie.

The tone of his voice and the slump of his body suggested either that he had problems related to right now, or that what’s going on right now is the end of his times with the New York Yankees.

His answers raised more questions rather than answering any.

He’s a free agent the moment of the last out of the World Series. We know that he’s been undercut by management several times before and has taken it hard. We know that he likes playing with this team and feels the heritage of playing in the center field of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. We know that he has enjoyed his relationship with the community. He’s leaving the interpretation to the ear of the beholder.

This can be a very insecure time in a man’s life. Brian Cashman, the young general manager faced for the first time with trying to hold players the Yankees want to hold, says he has no reason to think Williams or his agent, the contentious Scott Boras, have closed the door on the Yankees or have hard feelings. But then, what else could a hopeful general manager say?

Last week, with the crescendo building to the World Series opener with the San Diego Padres, it was an event that Bernie held still to speak. He was dressed and headed out the door while most of his teammates were dealing with the assembled media. He stood with his back to the door and the sign that said, “Friday dress 11:30.” The notebooks and cameras formed a half-circle around him. He is too polite to have shoved through in silence.

He was asked if he had a response to the question whether he was suffering from personal problems. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s none of your business.” It was the closest to surly as we’ve seen him.

There was no light in his eyes. This is an approachable and courteous man. He understands introspection and motivation. He has almost always made himself available, even after bad games. When his young son was seriously ill in Puerto Rico two years ago, it was as if speaking about the situation was therapeutic for him. He opened his eyes wide and doe-like as he spoke and some teammates likened him to Bambi.

Characteristically, he goes to the weight room for a few minutes after games and then usually is among the last to leave the clubhouse. His most dissonant notes have come when he picked something soulful on his guitar and missed a chord. Throughout this postseason he has been quick to leave.

He’s the kind of person every team wants to contest the image of the selfish athlete. He grew up in Puerto Rico and his parents sent him to prep school in Connecticut. He studied music. He studied biology in college. He thought about being a doctor. Who wouldn’t want to hire him?

“He’s a little different,” said Manager Joe Torre. “He’s a very deep person. He’s sensitive, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a fire in his belly. Right now he has so many things going on in his life. Maybe he’s thinking these are the last games he’ll play in Yankee Stadium.”

Williams and the Yankees agreed to avoid the distraction of negotiation during the season. “Obviously it didn’t bother him,” Derek Jeter said. “He hit 26 home runs and batted in 97 runs and missed a month of the season.” His season made it inescapable that he’s going to get a lot of money if he stays here and even more if he holds out for the highest bidder.

But the season is over and this has been a difficult postseason. He’s played under his head with seven singles and one double. He had a big game in the conclusion against Cleveland, yet while his teammates were enjoying the baptism by champagne, Williams was reported to have secluded himself with his wife, Waleska, in the players lounge, out of bounds to the questioning media.

Torre offers the thought that maybe Williams believes he’s let teammates down. They’ve spoken and Williams said it’s always helpful to talk to Torre, but neither would reveal the subject.

Not that they should. “I’ve always taken pride in keeping my private life private,” Williams said.

His comfort with the team and with Torre are important negotiating tools for the Yankees. In contrast, he never was close with Buck Showalter, the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are expected to offer a lot of money, as are the Baltimore Orioles and several other teams.

The first order of business now is to help the Yankees fulfill their destiny. Perhaps three hits in one game against the Indians means he’s swinging well again. “Sometimes that happens for me; sometimes it doesn’t,” Williams said joylessly. “I take pride in going out there and playing hard every day. If I do that every time out, I can sleep at night.”

Williams is 30 years old. New York has been comfortable for him. If the Mets didn’t sign Mike Piazza, Williams would be a wonderful fit for them, but the Mets have shown no thirst for a long-lasting war with Yankees. The market for a center fielder who just led the league in batting will be rich. The Yankees are counting on Williams feeling so strongly about the prospect of winning here and feeling so warm about this team that he takes something less than the highest bid to stay. Junior Griffey did in Seattle, Mark McGwire did in St. Louis.

Williams will be fabulously wealthy. How much does a man need to be happy? What is it worth for a man who has ridden a tickertape parade to be happy?

“I’m having a lot of fun,” he said. revealing no fun at all. “It’s been an incredible year for us.”

Is it sad that it’s coming to a close? “It is kind of sad,” Bernie Williams of the Yankees said. “But I’m just going to enjoy the most I can out of the Series right now. I’d be a fool not to enjoy my time here.

“This is a special team, a special time. I don’t know when I’ll get that chance again.”

Too bad. It sounded like a man saying goodbye.