Bernie Williams compares baseball and music careers in front of Carnegie Hal Show

Bernie Williams has appeared under bright lights before, but a performance early next year is perhaps just his biggest – even with four World Series rings.

Former New York Yankees Center Fieldder, a long -time musician who went on performing arts high school while chasing baseball dreams, plays in the famous Carnegie Hall on January 13 with opera singer Jonathan Tetelman.

Even after his play days ended in 2006, Williams went back to Music School and has since played in large venues, including Radio City Music Hall. He has even performed the national anthem in front of the same Yankee crowds that used to sing his name.

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“I’m already starting to get butterflies in my stomach. I know this guy [Tetelman] is a veteran of these performances, “Williams told Pakinomist Digital in a recent conversation.” But I often do the analogy with baseball, which you pretty much know how successful a baseball player is – statistics, contracts and all this, your songs and music are a little hard to tell.

“And the only way I could find out how successful you are are of the people you play with, and in the places you play. So having Jonathan who collaborates with him and performs in this place is right at the top of any musician list. So I just feel extremely honored by being part of this process.”

Williams may have four World Series rings and the game under the brightest lights, but even he needs some advice before this performance.

“Good luck,” Tetelman joked. “Let’s be prepared. Let’s be prepared. Let’s be prepared for something. I think the scene is one of the things where you just never know what’s going to happen. You never know how the audience will feel. You never know what will go wrong or go right in a piece and you just have to go with the stream and just feel the music and let it take you where it goes.”

Bernie Williams conducts an audio control before the start of the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, on September 8, 2021. (Frank BEERRA JR/The Journal News via Imag Content Services, LLC)

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The famous saying is that professional athletes die twice, but when Williams retired, he saw almost an immediate opportunity to chase his other passion.

“My experience of going back to school specifically for music was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made after baseball. I realized I had a future in music probably as soon as I finished playing baseball with Yankees,” Williams said. “We had a bit of a controversial process of contract negotiations and they offered me a deal in the smaller leagues and this and that. And I was like, ‘you know what, maybe it’s time for me to move away from all this and try to reinvent myself.’

“I already had this music bug that lived in me for a while and I was who, ‘you know what? Maybe I should just explore the opportunity to become something else.’ Although I can’t really call it a career, it’s another chance to do something that I really love in life and it’s a passion for me.

Music and baseball are “another muscle,” Williams said, but there are plenty of comparisons.

Former New York Yankees Bernie Williams, who played “Star Spangled Banner” on guitar at Howard J. Lamade Stadium in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. (Al Tielemans /Sports Illustrated Via Getty Images)

“There is a regular place where you really see all your hard work come to work. You are part of a team in baseball that has to come together, but it is not so much different from this,” he said. “We are a team and have a lot of people behind us, really support us and hope this should be a success. It’s another muscle, but at the same time it’s the same thing. A lot of hard work prepared, trusting your ability, not living too much on your mistakes, and just letting it tear. It’s a thing that makes me very nervous, but at the same time, very excited.”