Playing a Guitar Instead of Center Field, Bernie Williams Still Burns for Baseball

NEW YORK -- Bernie Williams' new CD, to be released April 14, is titled, Moving Forward.

Which he is. Reluctantly.

Williams, 40 and out of the big leagues since 2006, maintains he can still play. He suited up for Puerto Rico in the WBC, but not as a swan song.

"I felt really good about playing," he said Friday. "I am my worst critic, and I didn't feel very bad about it."

Williams spoke before taping the YES Network interview show CenterStage. The episode airs April 8.

While his next few weeks are dedicated to promoting the album and playing some concerts, Williams wants to play baseball again.

He said, however, he isn't interested in the minors or the independent leagues. Yet he knows it's a longshot to go straight to the majors after two years away.

Asked if baseball is still in the picture, Williams said, "I think baseball will always be in the picture.

"I don't think it's up to me any more," he added with a chuckle. "Obviously there's a lot of skepticism on whether or not I can play after two years out of the game, being 40 and all that."

The skepticism is probably well-founded. He was a mediocre player in 2006 and this month went 0-for-5 in the WBC and looked shaky in the outfield.

But if he never plays again, Williams still deserves consideration for the Hall of Fame, with his 2,336 career hits, eight seasons batting .300, 80 postseason RBI (most ever), 22 postseason homers (second to Manny Ramirez) and 128 postseason hits (second to Derek Jeter).

Meanwhile, Williams' second career is picking up steam. He said music has elements in common with baseball: rhythm, discipline and the ability to perform in public.

The new album, his second, includes instrumentals written by Williams (jazz, classical guitar, rock, salsa and merengue) and covers.

Music, Williams said, is more challenging than baseball. He was a great athlete without natural baseball instincts who made himself into a star worthy of the fabled position as Yankees center fielder, and now he has to start from the beginning again with music.

"It's just amazing the amount of work you have to put it," he said. "It's making me work hard at something I can become pretty decent at.

"I have a very competitive nature, and I compete against myself all the time, trying to get better at what I do."

His slow version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame, he said, arose from melancholy feelings about being out of baseball since the Yankees declined to offer him anything more than a non-roster invitation to spring training in 2007.

"It's kind of like," he said, "me saying, 'Baseball, thanks for being so good to me. ... Kind of my quasi-goodbye to the game."

Appropriately, the CD includes a bonus track: a live performance, with Bruce Springsteen, of Glory Days.

Williams, who plans to attend the April 16 regular-season opener at the new Yankee Stadium, still yearns for his glory days.

"I don't think there's a lot of guys," he said, "who can say, 'You know what? I am totally done, I hate the game, I don't want to know about this any more.' I think in the back of their mind, there's some little part of them that says it's never enough. Who would want to end a job like that?"