Williams adds music degree to highlight reel

NEW YORK — It was a look of sheer joy that spread across the face of Bernabé Williams as he accepted his college diploma from Manhattan School of Music president James Gandre on Friday afternoon at Riverside Church in Upper Manhattan.

The look is not an unfamiliar one for Yankees fans. Williams, a four-time World Series champion and five-time All-Star outfielder who spent his entire 16-year Major League career in New York, wore the same expression on many occasions in pinstripes. It was there when he hit that 10th-inning walk-off home run against the Red Sox in Game 1 of the 1999 American League Championship Series, when he held up the 2000 World Series trophy and when he connected on that three-run homer in Game 3 of the ’03 World Series. For Williams, though, Friday’s feeling is distinctive.

“This is a little bit different,” Williams said. “It’s at a different level. When you get to academics and it’s intellectual, it’s certainly a great accomplishment for me. I’m representing my family well. My mom was a teacher for 40 years and she was always stressing our academics, so I really did this for her. In my house, you earned the right to play baseball and play music if you had good grades. That was the rule.”

Williams’ mother, Rufina, was at home in Puerto Rico, but Williams’ three children — Bernie Alexander, 25, Beatriz, 22, and Bianca, 20 — were on hand to see him accept the diploma representing his Bachelor of Music in jazz guitar. Next week, Beatriz will graduate from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in art history, and there was initially some worry that both graduations would fall on the same day.

“I was going to be mad if he missed my graduation for his, but this is really exciting for all of us,” Beatriz said. “It’s cool for our family to have two graduations in the same …

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