Eric Williams...

[Vinny Natale <vnatale@xxxxxxx>]

I follow three teams - Providence College, the Yankees, and the
Celtics.  And Eric Williams is all of them wrapped up into one!

Vinny


THE PRINCE SPEAKS


You can take the boy out of Yankees country, but you can't take the Yankees
out of the boy. So when you ask Celtics forward Eric Williams -- a Newark
native -- if he's still a Yankees fan, he reaches up into his locker and
grabs a white hat with that familiar interlocking NY symbol.


"That give you an answer?" Williams said. "I wear my Yankee hat everywhere
I go. In Boston. In the locker room. Doesn't matter."


But isn't being a Yankee fan sort of an occupational hazard for an athlete
in Boston?


"Here's what I tell people in Boston," Williams said. "If you grew up in
Boston, if you went to school in Boston, and then you moved to New York for
a big money job, would you become a Yankees fan? Of course not. So I'm not
going to change, either.


"You can't take my childhood away. I was a Yankees fan back when Phil
Rizutto was calling the games. The teams weren't very good back then, but
we still had the tradition. I was a Dave Winfield fan. Him and Tommy John,
Ron Guidry, Dave Righetti -- those were my guys. Growing up, I breathed New
York Yankees. And I still do."