It was not without some sorrow that I learned the management of the New York Yankees, the team that I have called my brothers for lo these many years now, had decided they would decline their option on my contract for 2006. To say that a tear welled up in my eye would be true; to say that a quick, white-hot flash of nostalgia raced through my heart would be fair. So many glorious days we have seen together — my brothers Derek, Jorge, Mariano and I — and truly, some grim days, too. After Joe Torre and Brian Cashman informed me of the club’s decision, I retired to my chambers to play many sorrowful Phrygian and Aeolian arpeggios on my guitar, those sickly-sweet minor thirds and minor sixths the only adequate way I know to fully express the depths of my sentiment.

But, as Pablo Neruda said, “A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.” I don’t wish to lose forever the child inside me. Thus, I feel it is not too early, though I am still in the regular employ of the Yankees, to begin my campaign to find a new green pasture on which to ply my trade next summer.

Some of my friends have told me that the Yankees’ decision may be a blessing in disguise. They say that the front office is merely trying to spare me from becoming that most pitiful of sports figures — the declining athlete who holds on too long. Don’t be like Rickey, they say, wallowing in anonymous mediocrity in some one-stoplight town, hoping and dreaming for that last taste of greatness. The strength is gone from my throwing arm, these people argue, and baserunners know that when a ball is hit in my direction, they can safely take two bases instead of just one. At the plate, I can no longer catch up with a top-notch Major League fastball. For opposing pitchers, my counselors claim I am merely an irritating obstacle on the way to vanquishing more imposing foes. In the Bronx, this all may be true.

One need only look briefly around baseball, however, to know that there are still clubs where the services of Bernie Williams would be welcomed. Might not the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, their roster filled as its is with burgeoning young talent, welcome a veteran like myself to groom their prospects for future championship runs? I have much that I could teach to Carl Crawford and Delmon Young — both about the proper way to patrol the outfield, and the maximal finger-picking technique required for the faithful interpretation of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Guitar Concerto. Or perhaps the Colorado Rockies, still smarting from their mugging at the hands of Theo Epstein and eager to rid themselves of the psychic damage that now roams their clubhouse in the personage of Larry Bigbie, could offer me a modest stipend. I know my way around an après-ski in Vail, and also could share with the Rockies’ management a thing or two about getting over on the Red Sox front office.

There are other talents that I have to offer. While on a long vacation with Mike Mussina amid the fjords of Iceland after the 2002 season, I learned how to throw a knuckle curve by skipping stones across great sheets of ice. My experience around baseball this year tells me that the quality of Major League bullpens is greatly diminished, and it is therefore a job seekers’ market. My knuckle curve should have obvious attractions for such pitching-deprived squads. But there are other skills I have acquired, too. Once, while on a kayaking trip on the Amazon, I was taught by fierce Kayapo tribesman how to fish Piranhas out of the river using only my teeth. During practice lately, I have been experimenting with catching long fly balls in the gap using this ancient technique. For cost-conscious general managers, think of the savings for your ball club — my equipment expenses will be much lower than the typical player who uses a glove.

Anyone who has lingered in the aisles at Sherry-Lehman knows that a fine Malbec, brought to robust maturity on the rolling Andean foothills of Argentina, does not pay for itself. The lifestyle to which I have become accustomed — though not the garish “bling” preferred by some of my more callow teammates — is expensive. Driving the finest German roadsters, accompanying Sandy Weill and James Wolfensohn to Carnegie Hall to listen to the Ensemble Intercontemporain play the newest piece by Wolfgang Rihm, commissioning Christian de Portzamparc to build a summer home on Monaco, and spreading Grey Poupon on everything one eats, can be very trying on the finances.

That is why I beseech you, humbly, to Pay Bernie.

Bernie Williams is currently the centerfielder for the New York Yankees. His album The Journey Within is now available from GRP Records.