When the Jets told Joe Klecko he was done and he didn't agree, he went to play somewhere else.
He wishes he hadn't.
"When you grow up with one team and then go to another, you don't really understand it until you get there," said Klecko, a lifelong Jet who left to play for the Colts in 1988, after the Jets told him his knees were shot. "It's not the same. I played the whole season, but my heart wasn't in it."
Klecko, now 53, was looking back on that memory the other day because he was asked about Bernie Williams, the lifelong Yankee who doesn't appear to have a spot on the 2007 team. Klecko doesn't know Williams, but he's a baseball fan, and he knows enough to understand what's going on.
"That's almost exactly what happened to me, huh?" Klecko said. "I really believe there's only one person who knows (when you're done), and that's you. Whether you're fooling yourself or not is a different story."
The place at which the Yankees have arrived with Bernie Williams is not uncharted. It's one of the tougher spots in professional sports. How do you tell a legendary player -- a franchise icon, in this case -- that he's done when he doesn't think he is? How do you tell your fans he's done when they want to see more of him? What are you supposed to do?
It's a difficult situation, and not just for the player or the fans. It's tough on the team, too.
"I don't think general managers are totally devoid of sentimentality, or emotion, or what's right for their organization's culture and fan base," Arizona Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes said. "But by nature, I think we have to be a little less emotional and a little more pragmatic in situations like those."
Byrnes isn't far removed from a similar situation. Late last season, he had to call Luis Gonzalez into his office and tell him the Diamondbacks wouldn't be bringing him back for 2007.
Gonzalez was 39 years old and moving toward the end of a season that would see him post his lowest home run total (15) since 1997. Yes, he would end up with 52 doubles. Yes, the fans loved him. Yes, his was the hit that famously won the 2001 World Series against the Yankees and Mariano Rivera. Yes, he was a powerful charitable presence in the community.
But he was also getting old, and the Diamondbacks had to make room for top young outfield prospects Carlos Quentin and Chris Young. And so Gonzalez, whether he and the fans liked it or not, had to go.
"It's extremely difficult," Byrnes said. "He's unquestionably the most popular player in the history of our franchise. But if it gets to a point where a player's not performing the way he used to and then playing-time issues arise with young players that you're trying to build around for your future, that's a situation where nobody benefits. That's what you have to guard against."
In Williams' case, the Yankees are determined to carry 12 pitchers and two first basemen (in addition to Jason Giambi, who will be a full-time designated hitter). That leaves room for only four outfielders -- starters Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu, plus reserve Melky Cabrera. The Yankees offered Williams a non-guaranteed contract and an invitation to spring training, but so far he has not accepted it. Last week, he said he probably would not.
That means Williams' career could be over, or that he could play for a different team than the one that signed him in 1985. And while those are painful possibilities for Williams and his fans to consider, that's basically the way it goes.
"You can have personal feelings, but you separate yourself," Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said. "You're a human being, and you understand people's feelings, but you still have to do what's best for your ballclub."
The example Dombrowski cited came in the wake of the 1997 World Series title he won as GM of the Florida Marlins. Dombrowski said he formed a special attachment to the players but that he had to trade them because ownership ordered him to slash payroll so the team could be sold.
"It was not easy to pick up the phone and tell those people they had been traded, or that they were going to be traded at that point," Dombrowski said. "But that was a case where you had to do it because it was dictated to you by your ownership. So there are a lot of different reasons it could happen, but what it comes down to is, you have to separate yourself from the emotional aspect of it to do your job."
That's the situation in which Yankees GM Brian Cashman finds himself now -- and he's not likely to be the only one. As players are playing to an older and older age, there are more players than ever who will be determined to hang onto their careers longer than their teams might want them to. And as salaries are skyrocketing, more and more teams are looking to fill those fourth-outfielder spots with young, cheap players such as Cabrera rather than older, more expensive veterans.
"Newer guys are coming in, but the old guys aren't going out as willingly," said Gregg Clifton, an agent whose clients include Gonzalez as well as the seemingly ageless David Wells. "There are bound to be a lot more situations like this."
Gonzalez, who played with three different teams before he became a Diamondback, has moved on. He signed with the Dodgers this winter. Williams has dropped the occasional mild hint about possibly playing elsewhere, but it's unclear how serious a possibility that is. Right now, Williams is dealing with the emotional part of not feeling wanted by the team for which he's played his entire career and won four World Series titles.
"We play a game because it allows us to stay little kids," Klecko said. "Bernie's 38, so it allowed him to stay a kid for 20-something years. That's what it does for us. We feel like we're owed, maybe, but you're not. You played. You've made a lot of money. Now, the latter part of your career, it becomes a very tough emotional time for all of us, as players."
Klecko may not have been as great, or as famous, or as decorated as Williams is, but he was a beloved Jet. And in that respect, he knows what Williams is going through. But if Williams is thinking about playing for another team, Klecko might just advise him to think again.
"It's very hard to go to anybody else at this stage," Klecko said. "It wasn't in me. There's a time when you wake up in the morning and you want to get it done, but it's just not there."
