Yankees Magazine: Essential Wisdom

The impact that Bernie Williams’ father had on him was immeasurable. Without the sage advice and caring personality of Bernabe Williams Sr., the great Yankees center fielder believes that his life would have turned out much different. He is confident that he would not have made it to the big leagues, much less into Monument Park, where he is honored alongside the most celebrated players ever to wear the pinstripes. Nor would he have become an acclaimed, classically trained jazz guitarist after hanging up his spikes in 2006.

“He was a self-made person,” Williams said about his father, who was a naval seaman and merchant marine before working as a handyman in his native Puerto Rico. “He had a rough childhood, and his education was only through about the third grade. But he was one of the smartest people I have ever known. His influence still resonates in my everyday life. I owe him a lot.

“He used to bring my brother and me to the Little League field and teach us life lessons about discipline and being committed to something and sticking with it. When I think about things that have happened throughout the course of my life, I realize that my dad talked to me about how to deal with everything I ended up doing. A lot of the things that have happened in my life remind me of his understated wisdom. He was very methodical in everything he did. Watching him take time to make decisions, whether it was changing a faucet or rebuilding an engine, that has helped me to achieve everything I have done.”

Williams’ father created a simple mantra for his oldest son -- two words that, had they not been heeded, could have changed the course of Bernie’s 16-year career -- and Yankees history.

“Become indispensable.”

***

The Yankees had just won a Major League-record 125 games, including a four-game sweep of the Padres in the 1998 World Series, and the team’s Gold Glove center fielder had taken home the American League batting title with a .339 average. Williams also hit 26 home runs and drove in 97 during the Yankees’ second championship campaign in three seasons.

At 29 years old, Williams had reached the pinnacle of success on the baseball diamond. After some character-strengthening seasons in the Minors, Williams cracked the bigs in 1991 and made himself into an All-Star, arguably the most valuable player on a team in the middle of a dynasty.

At the conclusion of the 1998 season, Williams was also a free agent. This was his chance to secure his future in New York, where he so badly wanted to finish his career. But it was also his opportunity to get the big contract that would represent generational wealth -- the type that all professional athletes dream of.

As the glow of World Series glory faded into a pivotal offseason for the Yankees and for Williams, negotiations between the center fielder’s agent, Scott Boras, and team brass reached a stalemate with the two sides unable to agree on the Gold Glover’s value.

Although Williams maintained his desire to finish his career where it had begun, higher offers were coming in, including one from the rival Boston Red Sox. Williams believed his market value was in line with the more than $90 million the Red Sox were said to be dangling in front of him, rather than the $60 million offer he reportedly had from the Yankees.

Determined to stay in pinstripes while also getting what he felt he deserved, Williams made a phone call directly to George Steinbrenner, who, at the time, was close to signing potent outfielder Albert Belle and moving on from his homegrown star.

“Scott encouraged me to just call George at his house,” Williams said. “So, that’s what I did. I told him that I wanted to be a Yankee, and I told him that he wanted me to be a Yankee. I was able to cut out all of the middlemen and just plead my case to him.”

In his moment of truth, the key advice that his father had handed down to him years earlier served as a guiding light.

“One of the most important pieces of advice that my dad gave me was to become indispensable,” Williams said. “Baseball is a game in which everybody is expendable. You are always in trade talks, and there really isn’t a sense of stability until you sign the big contract. The one thing that my dad told me that stuck with me for a long time was to make sure that the team thinks they can’t make it without you, that they won’t be better without you. If they think that, they will do everything they can to keep you.”

Williams must have made the Yankees’ owner feel that he was not expendable, even with Belle waiting in the wings, because the Boss increased his offer to more than $87 million. Williams signed a seven-year contract a few days later.

“My attitude was that making myself indispensable superseded everything else,” Williams said. “It’s not about being anything else except the best you can possibly be and making yourself a very crucial part of the team. My dad helped me realize that I was the only one who could do that for myself. No one else could do that for me.”

***

With Williams entrenched in center field and batting cleanup, the Yankees won the World Series in 1999 and again in 2000, making it three in a row before losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 7 of the 2001 Fall Classic. While Williams was enjoying his finest moments on the field during those years, he would also experience personal tragedy at home when his father passed away at the age of 73 from complications of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2001 following a five-year battle with the rare lung disease.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of America, IPF affects the tissue surrounding the air sacs in people’s lungs. This common type of interstitial lung disease (ILD) develops when lung tissue becomes thick and stiff for unknown reasons and, over time, these changes can cause permanent scarring in the lungs, making it progressively more difficult to breathe.

Around the time that Williams won his first championship in 1996, his father began to experience a persistent dry cough coupled with increased fatigue, but rather than go away, the situation would soon get worse.

“He was tired all the time from things like walking up a flight of stairs,” Williams said. “We would always take walks on the beach, but he started feeling like those things were more difficult. And the cough never went away.”

As months turned into years, Williams Sr.’s health continued to decline. What made it worse was that he didn’t receive an actual diagnosis for several years.

“He would never want to go to the doctor or the hospital,” Williams said. “I think that contributed to the delay in getting a diagnosis, and that was compounded by the fact that when he sought medical help, the doctors were only dealing with the symptoms and not focusing on the source of the problems. The doctors were trying to figure out whether it was pneumonia, bronchitis or a tough cold or the flu. They thought it might be COPD or asthma. They were just trying to throw darts to come up with a diagnosis, but none of that stuff worked, and the treatments for those ailments were ineffective.”

With no relief or resolution, Williams and his younger brother, Hiram, along with their parents, began to research doctors in Puerto Rico who specialized in rare lung diseases.

“It took us, as a family, about five years to come up with someone in Puerto Rico who had read about IPF and thought to test him for it,” Williams said. “Sure enough, that was it.”

Although the diagnosis gave the family clarity and finally enabled the elder Williams to get treatment that would briefly improve his quality of life, being diagnosed with a disease for which there is no cure was still devastating news.

“He was expected to have just a few more years to live,” Williams said. “That was a painful reality for me and my entire family.”

***

For Williams, the life lessons that his father taught have stayed with him. So, too, has the call to action from seeing his father’s brave battle with IPF.

With an estimated 40,000 people losing their lives every year, Williams wanted to help patients and families whose traumatic experiences he understood all too well. In 2017, he joined pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim’s Tune In To Lung Health campaign and began working to raise awareness of IPF and other interstitial lung diseases through a multifaceted approach.

“I didn’t want to see people who have been inflicted with this disease go through what we went through, especially considering the lack of information that was available about IPF,” Williams said. “Raising awareness for IPF and other interstitial lung diseases has been a tribute to my dad. He was an example of dignity and perseverance until his last breath, and to be able to pay tribute to his memory and to support other people dealing with the same thing he did has been a great thing in my life.”

Williams, now 56, has also found this cause to be especially important because of the vast number of IPF patients that are initially misdiagnosed.

“The sooner an accurate diagnosis is made, the more doctors can do to improve the quality of a person’s life and prolong their life,” Williams said. “It’s important to be cognizant of that, especially because there are so many treatments available now. Your chances of getting treatment for interstitial lung diseases improve exponentially when you get to a place where you are educated about these things.”

Using his platform as a former Major League star and Latin Grammy nominee, Williams visited Minor and Major League ballparks in areas where there were high numbers of ILD cases per capita. Along with either throwing out a ceremonial first pitch or performing the national anthem, Williams would speak with members of the media in every city, focusing on ILD awareness. On several of those occasions, he also met with ILD patients and their caretakers.

“My job was to reach as many media outlets as I could to let them know what we were there for,” Williams said. “Some of the most important things I talked about in those interviews were the symptoms of IPF. It remains very important for people to understand what symptoms are related to IPF, especially because they are so easily confused with other ailments.”

Another significant part of Williams’ messaging has been to encourage people experiencing a dry cough or fatigue to get to the right specialist.

“People dealing with those things need to get examined by a pulmonologist,” Williams said. “They have the testing available and can determine whether you have IPF or, in a best-case scenario, they can rule it out. In a worst-case scenario, you can get the information you need on how to deal with IPF. You can do things to alleviate some of the symptoms and get the education needed to make decisions that can be difficult and would be otherwise confusing.”

During many of Williams’ ballpark visits, host teams distributed brochures about ILD signs and symptoms. Additionally, at some of the Minor League stops, fans were led in “Breathless Blowout” events, where they were encouraged to blow chewing gum bubbles to underscore the fact that those living with ILD may not be able to complete that simple act.

Following the 2018 Eastern League All-Star Game in Trenton, N.J., Williams and 881 fans made it into the Guinness World Records book as the most people to blow chewing gum bubbles simultaneously.

After visiting ballparks throughout the country, the COVID-19 pandemic halted the campaign. With no live events for more than a year, Williams focused his efforts on providing information about IPF and other interstitial lung diseases through Boehringer Ingelheim’s website, tuneintolunghealth.com.

“The website was designed to inform and educate people about IPF and other interstitial lung diseases and to also give them a sense of community so that they feel like they are not alone,” Williams said. “We want them to have a support system of people who are going through the same lung diseases or are supporting someone who is dealing with it. It’s important for them to talk with people about the decisions that have to be made. It’s been part of the evolution of this campaign. The site also gives people the chance to search for pulmonologists in their local areas and even includes the insurance providers that those doctors work with.”

Williams is again making appearances at ballparks to raise awareness for ILD, and he is scheduled to be at Yankee Stadium in September, which is pulmonary fibrosis awareness month. On that night, there will be a special ticket offer focused on raising funds for ILD awareness. A portion of the proceeds from these tickets will support the Pulminary Fibrosis Foundation.

***

Williams’ lifelong passion for music was inspired by his father. As a young child, Bernie would hear his father playing a guitar after he and the rest of his family had gone to bed.

“He had brought home a guitar from Spain,” Williams said. “He would play in the living room for about an hour before going to sleep. He would play traditional folkloric Puerto Rican music. On one of those nights, when I was supposed to be in bed, I asked him if he would teach me how to play the guitar, and he did. I learned my first couple of chords right away, and from that moment on, I developed this great love for music, especially the guitar. I always remembered him playing music for my brother and me as we were dancing around the living room in our diapers.”

Like so many other memories from his childhood in Puerto Rico, those experiences still make Williams smile.

“My dad had a great affinity for music, and he loved sharing that with me,” Williams said. “I always relate that with happy times. That was one of the biggest influences I had with music. Even though he wasn’t a virtuoso instrumentalist, he instilled in us a love and an appreciation for music.”

All these years later, Williams has used music in the Tune In To Lung Health campaign. In effect, he has given people a sense of joy similar to what his father provided simply by playing a guitar.

Williams partnered with world-renowned vocal coach Eric Vetro to create a program that demonstrates how music and breathing exercises can help people cope with the emotional, mental and physical stresses brought on by lung disease. Among the resources found on the Tune In To Lung Health website, there are videos in which Vetro demonstrates exercises he uses with vocalists. He does, however, caution patients to consult with a medical professional before taking part.

“If you’re a vocalist, your voice is your instrument,” Williams said. “That means that your lungs are the motor that power the instrument. Vocalists have specific exercises that enhance their ability to breathe and to make all of the belts and sounds from their voices. It’s been found that these exercises can also be very helpful for people to develop breathing techniques that can help them cope with interstitial lung diseases.”

The website also features playlists from Williams and Vetro, as well as people affected by ILD. The featured songs, which can be accessed through Spotify, were chosen because of their soothing, motivational or inspirational value.

“There’s no question in my mind that the power of music can be utilized to do a lot of things,” Williams said. “We are just tapping into that resource. It may be intangible to some people, but the more you understand how powerful this resource is, the more people will make an effort to use it as much as I have. Music has been such an important thing in my life, from dealing with processes that happen in my brain to improving my mood and encouraging me to have the courage to do certain things that are difficult. At times, when you feel lonely or sad, you can have a song that will lift your spirits up.”

Williams coped with the loss of his father by writing an instrumental ballad that paid tribute to him. A few years ago, Williams challenged the public to write lyrics for the song, and David DePinho, whose mother suffered from chronic lung disease, received the most votes from a panel of celebrity judges. The song was named “Breath of Life (Para Don Berna),” and it debuted in 2021. The song was then recorded by Williams and platinum recording artist Jordin Sparks.

***

Bernie Williams, a father of four, finished his career with a .297 average, 287 home runs and 1,257 RBIs. He won four championships in pinstripes, and he ranks first in Major League history with 80 postseason RBIs and third in postseason home runs with 22 -- including extra-innings walk-off blasts in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS and Game 1 of the 1999 ALCS. The Yankees retired Williams’ No. 51 in 2015.

Long before he made his Major League debut in 1991, Williams was introduced to the game by his father on a Little League field in Puerto Rico. And when Williams signed his first contract with the Yankees and left his homeland to start his professional career on Minor League fields in the United States, it was his father who helped keep him on a course to Major League stardom, even when he struggled.

“He had a plan of action for everything,” Williams said. “His influence was all about committing to a process and being consistent. He would tell me that I had the God-given ability just like so many other players, but what would make the difference was my ability to outwork others, my willingness to spend two or three extra hours in the gym or in the batting cage to make sure that I had control of my craft.”

Williams earned the admiration of his father for his success on the baseball diamond, but he believes that Bernabe Williams Sr. would also have profound respect for the work he is doing to help people suffering from the same disease that took his life.

“I think that he would be so proud,” Williams said. “His whole life revolved around helping other people. It was really hard for him to say no when people came up to him for help. He was one of those old traditional Puerto Ricans that would give the shirt off his back for other people. He would be beside himself.”

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the August 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.