UPGRADING the Rangers’ starting pitching was general manager Doug Melvin’s top priority last winter. But the dangling carrot of Bernie Williams was a temptation that was difficult to resist.
Though the Rangers didn’t actively pursue Williams, Melvin yesterday confirmed a Post report last October that indicated the Texas club was interested in the Yankee outfielder, interest Melvin couldn’t help but have after watching Williams go from a 16-year-old prospect he signed to a $15,000 bonus to a $87.5 million machine whose six RBIs Tuesday night helped put his Rangers in a 1-0 hole in this best-of-five division series.
The GM part of Melvin told him he needed pitching. His heart told him his club could use Williams. Eventually, his head over-ruled his heart. “It ran through my mind to try to sign him in Texas as a free agent,” Melvin said during yesterday’s off day at the Stadium. “But we were pursuing the No.1 starting pitcher that everybody wants us to get. I wound up being on vacation when I got a call and Bernie was on the phone. He told me he had just signed with the Yankees.”
Melvin admitted that “it goes through my mind,” what might have been had he actively pursued Williams. Considering the performance the Yankee center fielder staged Tuesday night, it must be haunting vision.
Williams almost single-handedly beat the Rangers in Game 1, driving in six runs with a single, double and a home run, while robbing Juan Gonzalez of at least one RBI with a diving catch in the third inning.
“He’s a complete player,” Melvin said. “The thing I admire about Bernie is his patience at the plate. He may not hit 40 homers, knock in 150 runs, but the guy gets on base. And when he gets on base, he can run and he takes extra-bases. He’s a very talented player. I think for us to win, we need to face Bernie Williams without runners on base.”
That will be one of the Rangers’ objectives tonight in Game 2, putting Melvin in the odd circumstance of rooting against a player who helped him build his reputation. The 1999 Ranger media guide points out that it was Melvin who signed Williams for the Yankees in 1985. Actually, it was the late scout Roberto Rivera who discovered Williams, but Melvin was the Yankees scouting director back then and had the 16-year-old kid in Puerto Rico eyeballed during a tryout where Gonzalez was in the same outfield.
“I talk to scouts now who still remember Bernie in the outfield pretending he was playing his guitar,” Melvin said.
The Rangers eventually signed Gonzalez, but Melvin brought Williams to Cheshire, Conn., where he spent the summer in a baseball camp near Melvin’s home in Branford.
This was in the day before extensive scouting, tryouts and the draft made it difficult to sign a player out from under another team’s nose, and Melvin wasn’t about to lose Williams. He had the youngster over to his home where he would feed him his wife’s strawberry shortcake or treat him to a steak dinner. There was extensive conversations in broken English and broken Spanish.
“It was like the old-fashioned recruiting that seems to be lost now-a-days,” Melvin said. “We kept it quiet. We even brought him to a tryout camp in Yankee Stadium when nobody knew who he was.”
Williams eventually signed for $15,000, and the following year, Melvin began a nine-year career in the Baltimore Orioles organization before being named the Rangers GM in 1994.
Rivera predicted Williams would be like Dave Winfield; strong, athletic, 094 . 0005.07a multi-dimensional player. Rivera has passed away, but his prophecy has come true. Williams may not have the power or size of Winfield, but he has enough of the five tools to have turned that $15,000 signing bonus into an $87.5 million deal to re-sign with the Yankees last winter. And he is emerging into a Mr. October of sorts with 10 career post-season home runs.
Said Melvin, “When he told me he had signed with the Yankees, I said, ‘Well, that’s good, Bernie. That’s probably the best place for you, to stay there and have a great career and fall under the great tradition of Yankee centerfielders.'”
But after watching Williams drive in six runs Tuesday night, Melvin was thinking back on what might have been last winter.
“It went through my mind last year to heavily get involved with him,” the Rangers GM said. “But at the time we were a pretty good offensive club and our needs have been for pitching. I was fortunate enough to get a guy like Rafael Palmeiro. But it goes through my mind about Bernie. He’s a great individual and he’d be nice to have on our ballclub. I’m happy to see him have success except when it’s against us.”