“I’m not made for the spotlight. I do my best work in the background.” BERNIE WILLIAMS
BERNIE WILLIAMS plays center field for the New York Yankees. This position has been known historically as the glamour position for the most glamorous team in the sport. Williams is the highest-paid player in the history of this glamorous organization.
Sorry for the “See Dick run” fact sheet. It is just that for a guy playing center field for the Yankees and making more money than anybody ever has from the team, Williams often has as high a profile as Clay Bellinger.
“I wouldn’t like it any other way,” Williams said. “I’m not made for the spotlight. I do my best work in the background.”
Williams has the accouterments of fame. The big paycheck. The important job. Distinctions such as a batting title, All-Star status and a pair of World Series rings. The honor of the big, corner, double-wide cubicle just to the right as you enter the clubhouse in Yankee Stadium.
But from that place of esteem, Williams has become like the locker itself, a familiar and unobtrusive presence. He comes. He plays. He goes.
No current player has more Yankee service time. Williams bridges a gap from Scott Sanderson to Scott Brosius, Steve Sax’s throwing problems to Chuck Knoblauch’s, from chumps to champs. Yet, when it comes to the state of the Yankee addresses, David Cone and Paul O’Neill are the men, Chili Davis and Mike Stanton offer wit, Joe Girardi and Luis Sojo insight. Heck, even with the need of translators, Orlando Hernandez and Hideki Irabu have a higher profile than Williams.
It is not that Williams is unapproachable. Quite the contrary. He is easy to talk to. He actually listens to questions, pauses to think out an answer and responds in anti-sound bites. More contemplative paragraphs than hit-and-run sentences. It’s just that if you never stop him, Williams will keep moving along the periphery, unconcerned about living outside the camera eye.
“He doesn’t need to be the straw that stirs the drink,” GM Brian Cashman said. “He hasn’t changed. When he came up to replace Roberto Kelly in center field, he just wanted to get the job done and that’s all he still wants to do. All the money, accolades, Gold Gloves, All-Star Games haven’t changed him a bit. That’s not easy.”
Two weeks ago, Williams was moved from the celebrity of cleanup to second in the order. He never made a fuss. Rather, he says that Davis and Tino Martinez are much more the prototype cleanup hitters. That he trusts fully in the fairness and intellect Joe Torre brings to decisions.
And clearly he has not sulked about the transition. He began an 11-game hitting streak he carried into last night’s matchup against Detroit at the onset of the switch, a period in which he had gone 23-for-59 (.390) with four homers, four doubles, nine RBIs and 18 runs.
His .344 average was actually five points higher than last year’s AL-best .339. Williams was on pace to drive in 100 runs, score 120 and challenge for his first 30-homer season. What he was happiest about, though, was that he has started all 76 games rather than fall victim to the annual nagging injury that usually besets him. He made no big deal that he was producing in the first season of his seven-year, $87.5 million contract.
“As far as the pressure I put on myself, it has nothing to do with dollars,” Williams said. “I’m not trying to say that money is not important, but it cannot be the determining factor of if you play hard or not.”
Williams admits that every once in a while his mind wanders to what might have been had there not been a last-minute breakthrough that kept him a Yankee. He knows that life in another city, probably Boston, would have “made me one of the most hated men in New York” and also forced him to justify to a new base of fans, media and teammates that he was worth the outlay.
“I feel blessed, I really do,” Williams said. “I know a lot of people say it is hard to play in New York because of the distractions and atmosphere. But I have grown up playing here and learned to work hard to keep my persona out of controversies and distractions. I can’t picture myself playing anyplace else. I have the best of both worlds. I get to keep some of my privacy and play with a great team.”
Williams knows that the historic success of the team last year lowered attention on his contract status and that the rise of Derek Jeter has moved the fame-and-fortune spotlight elsewhere. And he loves it. There is always another story around the world’s most famous baseball team. So many stories that the unobtrusive holder of the legacy of DiMaggio and Mantle, the casher of the largest Yankee checks ever bestowed by George Steinbrenner, the winner of Gold Gloves and batting titles, can move stealthy along the outskirts.
“I’m very happy with the focus elsewhere,” Williams said. “I just want to be consistent. When people think of Bernie, let them think of consistency. He’s there to play 100 percent every day. I’m fine with that. I don’t need anything else.”
