![\"Jazz](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TFL-L-bernie-williams-jonathan-tetelman-by-Bill-Menzel.jpg\")
Former baseball star Bernie Williams, left, at Carnegie Hall in New York City with Jonathan Tetelman, the opera star whom Williams calls “a beast.” (Bill Menzel\/Courtesy)<\/p>\nBaseball great Bernie Williams, who took his first swings as a New York Yankees prospect in Broward County 40 years ago, is coming back to play in South Florida \u2014 this time with a guitar instead of a bat.<\/p>\n
The Latin Grammy-nominated jazz musician will perform with opera star Jonathan Tetelman in a Florida Grand Opera program at Miami\u2019s Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, May 6. The Opera & All-Stars concert, which is scheduled to include salsa icon Willy Chirino, former Miami Dolphin Bryant McKinnie, New York basketball legend Stephon Marbury, ESPN journalist Darren Rovell and other figures from sports and media, is part of FGO\u2019s Voices of Wellness initiative in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month.<\/p>\n
Williams made his debut at New York\u2019s Carnegie Hall in January, accompanying Tetelman, the Chilean-American tenor who has performed in leading opera houses around the world, with selections from Giacomo Puccini\u2019s \u201cTosca\u201d (\u201cE lucevan le stelle\u201d), Mexican composer Agust\u00edn Lara\u2019s \u201cGranada,\u201d and other music. Williams also performed originals \u201cPara Don Berna\u201d and \u201cRitmo de Oto\u00f1o,\u201d the latter from his 2009 album, \u201cMoving Forward,\u201d which included guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Jon Secada and Dave Koz.<\/p>\n
Former baseball star Bernie Williams, left, at Carnegie Hall in New York City with Jonathan Tetelman, the opera star whom Williams calls “a beast.” (Bill Menzel\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old Williams, who won four World Series titles during his time playing on the hallowed grass at the original Yankee Stadium, admits that he was \u201cabsolutely\u201d intimidated by Carnegie Hall. Speaking by phone from Dorado in his native Puerto Rico, where he recently resettled to be close to family, Williams reflected on the unique joy he gets from music, the value of the arts, and missing baseball.<\/p>\n
FGO concert<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 collaboration with Tetelman at Carnegie Hall \u2014 joined by musicians from The Metropolitan Opera, a choir from the Manhattan School of Music and special guests \u2014 was a sellout. The concert was created by Adam Unger, a classically trained opera singer, former Yankees draft pick, and the founder of production company All-Star Encore, \u201cwhere sports, music and culture collide.\u201d<\/p>\n
A second edition with Florida Grand Opera made sense for many reasons, Williams said, citing Miami\u2019s cultural influence and South Florida\u2019s nickname as New York\u2019s \u201csixth borough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMiami seems like, obviously, a good choice, because of my Latin background, my affinity for the music, and my ties to the Florida region, with the Yankees,\u201d Williams said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a great combination with [All-Star Encore] and Florida Grand Opera. I think they\u2019re trying to revitalize and make opera music more accessible to people that may not be either into it or relate to it or not even know about it. So I think it\u2019s a great fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The set list is designed with casual arts consumers in mind, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna have the usual suspects, as I\u2019ve been calling them. Some of the greatest arias in the genre, performed flawlessly by Jonathan Tetelman. I mean, he\u2019s a beast, man. He\u2019s a force to be reckoned with, and I am so fortunate to be collaborating with him in this project,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Carnegie Hall vs. Yankee Stadium<\/p>\n
Williams has a degree in jazz performance from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and the Latin Grammy nomination, and he has performed for the unforgiving fans at Yankee Stadium and, even more daring, at Fenway Park, home of the rival Boston Red Sox, where he did a solo-guitar version of \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame<\/a>\u201d for teammate Derek Jeter\u2019s final game in 2014.<\/p>\n None of that prevented the butterflies Williams felt at Carnegie Hall.<\/p>\n \u201c[Yankee Stadium] is the only thing that I can relate it to, that might be similar. It takes a similar amount of work, and you face the same kind of pressure, but at a slower pace. The game of baseball was so fast, and things happen to you in a blink of an eye. With [music], you have an opportunity to set everything up and perform, but at the same time, you don\u2019t go there playing chopsticks,\u201d Williams said, laughing. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you are. I mean, winning four World Series and winning batting titles and Gold Gloves and all that in baseball did not help me.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the all-time great New York Yankees \u2014 his No. 51 was retired in 2015 \u2014 Williams signed with them at age 17 and first came to South Florida from Puerto Rico \u201cright out of high school\u201d in the spring of 1986. At the time, the Yankees held spring training at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, but had its minor-league training fields in Hollywood, where Williams was sent.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember we were fishing at some sort of a merchant marine academy, or something like that. Mr. Steinbrenner had some ties with the shipping industry. It just seemed that was a nice little fit for us. We had a couple of fields that we used to do our training as minor leaguers. Everything else, from the big league standpoint, was in Fort Lauderdale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a whole lot of uncertainty, a lot of excitement, not knowing what was going to happen in the future. I was feeling a little intimidated by the people that were ahead of me, trying to make it to the big leagues. There was a sense of competition, a sense of camaraderie, because I established some really good relationships with some other minor leaguers that were from Latin descent, you know, Dominicans, Venezuelans and Puerto Ricans as well. I started really discovering the [attitude] of battling and surviving, in a different culture and a different language. I think all those elements were, I guess, meeting in one place, and it was a really, really interesting time in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Arts vs. athletics<\/p>\n An interest in drawing and music came first for Williams, who started learning guitar from his father at around age 7. Baseball and track came later. Williams understands that trying to master both athletics and the arts at the same time can be challenging, both for young people and their parents. But he doesn\u2019t believe these interests have to be in conflict with each other.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds kind of difficult, but as a kid, I was very curious. And I have, for lack of a better way of describing it, just an inquisitive attitude for everything. I had a whole bunch of these sort of essential traits \u2014 you know, persistence, discipline, things that I could apply to anything that I would set my mind to do. \u2026 And I started making all these connections with life as a musician. The effort of getting a good piece of music together, the amount of work that takes, the determination to kind of stick with it and not give up, give it 100%. The pressure that I felt performing in front of people and how to overcome that. There are a lot of great [lessons] that I was able to get from learning an instrument and being involved with music,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n \u2018It has been a really, really great journey of discovery. And the cool thing about it is, unlike baseball, music never ends.\u2019 \u2014 Bernie Williams<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thing about timing, being on time. Also, from the music aspect, timeliness is just an essential part of music. One note at the right time in the right place can tell you so much more than the other 10,000 notes rambling around,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I started making all these associations with life and music and then, subsequently, sports. \u2026 I still rely on those things for my everyday life. It was not necessarily to choose between one or the other, because to me they were all interrelated.\u201d<\/p>\n Musical role models<\/p>\n When Williams was in high school in Puerto Rico, he studied classical guitarists such as Julian Bream and Eliot Fisk, while secretly indulging his \u201crebellious\u201d side with the music of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Van Halen. When he came to the States to play baseball, he discovered blues and jazz.<\/p>\n \u201cI made a little bit of a transition, because I felt really excited about playing electric guitar, playing with a pedal board, and having all this sound. But once I started playing blues and rock, [I thought] maybe there\u2019s something more to it. And then I really started hearing people like George Benson and John Scofield and Pat Metheny and people that had this rocking sound on their guitar, but they have this great jazz vocabulary. Then I started getting into Chick Corea and Dave Weckl and Yellowjackets. \u2026 Then I went back to the source, when I started studying the history of jazz, then to the real source of it with the blues, the interconnecting tissue that blends everything together in my mind,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been a really, really great journey of discovery. And the cool thing about it is, unlike baseball, music never ends. I mean, there\u2019s so much music, so much to learn. I always feel like, every time I pick up the guitar, I\u2019m learning something new about myself as well as the instrument,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a more enjoyable journey than it was with, you know, somebody throwing at you 95 mph.\u201d<\/p>\n Baseball role model<\/p>\n Williams said that if you ask a baseball player from Puerto Rico who their role model is, you\u2019re likely to get the same answer. But it\u2019s \u201cvery, very important,\u201d he said, to keep saying his name: Roberto Clemente, the Puerto Rican star who died in a plane crash in 1972 while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously he was a great player and worthy of the Hall of Fame, but it\u2019s what he did with the platform that was given to him, the way that he utilized that platform to better the lives of people in his community. He was so admired for that. And then, the last thing he was doing at his tragic death, doing what he loved to do. He was helping people, yes, and these were people that were not in his own country. I mean, that put him in the rare echelon of not only great baseball players, but great heroes of Puerto Rico. So, in my mind, there was not any other person to emulate more than him.\u201d<\/p>\n AP Photo<\/p>\n Roberto Clemente died in a 1972 plane crash while on an aid mission for Nicaraguan earthquake victims. (AP file photo) Williams retired in 2006 with an impressive .297 batting average, and doesn\u2019t rule out being able to get a hit in today\u2019s game. \u201cI might have one good swing left,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n Yes, he misses the game.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day. It was a great honor. \u2026 What I missed the most is those 3 1\/2 \u2014 back in the day \u2014 four hours of pure competition, not knowing what was going to happen in the course of the game. You could be a hero, you could be a joke, you could be everything in between,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving that excitement and uncertainty about what\u2019s going to happen, based on your hard work, playing at the highest possible level that you can play in the sport. Competing with people with like minds, you know, and having the psychological and physical competition, confrontation, and earning their respect. I mean, to me, that was what made the game so, so enjoyable and such a blessing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida Grand Opera\u2019s Opera & All-Stars concert will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 6, at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Tickets start at $25 at My.FGO.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at\u00a0bcrandell@sunsentinel.com<\/a>. Follow on\u00a0IG: @BenCrandell<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TFL-L-bernie-williams-world-series.jpg\")
Bernie Williams holds the World Series trophy after the New York Yankees beat the crosstown rival Mets in 2000. (Amy Sancetta\/AP file photo)
\nMemories of South Florida<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/TFL-L-bernie-williams-miranda-3-e1777349806672.jpg\")
Bernie Williams at rehearsal for his Carnegie Hall debut in January. (Julio Miranda\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n![\"En](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2LDNXCQO55AHBLZQOQMPXRH2PY.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nDoes he miss baseball?<\/p>\n