Williams is back now, practicing with the Yankees as he prepares for the World Baseball Classic. Looking back, he said, he might not have taken a roster spot if the Yankees had given him one.
“I had to choose my family, reconnecting with them,” Williams said Thursday. “I was going to lose my family if I continued playing the game.”
Williams did not lose his family; he and his wife still live in Westchester County with their three children. He has not lost his Yankees family, either.
Williams expected to train at the Yankees’ minor league complex on Himes Avenue, as he requested last month. As he drove there Thursday, he learned in a voicemail message from the clubhouse manager Rob Cucuzza that he had been invited to join the full squad.
“Instead of going to Himes, I made a left and went to Legends,” Williams said.
Told the name of the stadium was no longer Legends Field, Williams laughed and said he never got the memo. Then he learned it is called Steinbrenner Field.
“Even more fitting,” Williams said.
Williams was one of several players who met with George Steinbrenner, 78, whose health has been in decline. Williams said they spoke for about 20 minutes, reliving the glory years, and Steinbrenner, the team’s principal owner, told Manager Joe Girardi that he planned to be in New York for opening day at the new Yankee Stadium on April 16.
“I asked him about his horses,” Girardi said. “He didn’t say much about them. I think right now he’s more concerned about the horses out here.”
For another 10 days, Williams will be one of them again. The Yankees have missed Williams, continuing to search for a reliable replacement. Johnny Damon lasted one season as the regular center fielder before shifting to left, and now Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner are competing for the job. Williams is not a candidate.
Girardi said: “Strange things have happened, but I don’t necessarily look at that. Guys like having him here. They’re going to have some laughs, and it’s good.”
Girardi said he did not know quite how to introduce Williams before practice, and there was giggling in the clubhouse as he fumbled for a term. Williams is not a Yankees player, but he is not a coach, either. When the first-base coach Mick Kelleher asked Williams if he wanted to coach a drill or participate in it, Williams took part.
Likewise, while Williams has the trappings of a player — a locker in the main clubhouse, his old No. 51 jersey and helmet — he seemed unsure what to call Girardi. The two were teammates for four seasons.
“I guess I have to call him Skip now,” Williams said.
For Puerto Rico, Williams will be among a group of outfielders that includes Carlos Beltrán of the Mets and Alex Rios of the Toronto Blue Jays. He started training in December, but pulled a quadriceps muscle playing winter ball in Puerto Rico and returned home.
After two or three weeks, he said, he resumed hitting and throwing at an indoor facility in Westchester, north of New York City. Williams, 40, has never officially retired, and if he feels good after the World Baseball Classic, he might try to continue his career after two years off.
“I’ve always had the desire in the back of my mind that I could play, perhaps, if the situation was right with myself and my family; I could come back before it was too, too late,” Williams said. “So I don’t know. Right now, I’m really concentrating on representing my country well, not embarrassing myself or the team.
“And from that point on, if I still have the need for competition in me and still have the fire, I may have to seriously consider taking the opportunity to maybe play somewhere else.”
Then again, Williams conceded, he is competitive enough to always believe he can still play in the majors. He did so splendidly for 16 seasons, and those memories will not soon fade.
“There’s always going to be this small kid in me who’s going to say, ‘You can still do this, man, you can still do this,’ ” Williams said. “But I think I could be 70 and that kid’s still going to be there.
“So I’m learning how to take it in stride, and right now I’m having a great time. This is the first day — I showed up here and hit. I was facing some guy from Double-A or Triple-A, throwing gas, and I hit a line drive up the middle. What else can I ask for?”
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