Yankees Magazine: Hensley’s Homecoming

Hensley Meulens describes his journey from Curaçao to Yankee Stadium as improbable as “touching the moon.” Well, Meulens’ trailblazing accomplishment might not have been that incredible, but it was close. When the slugging right-handed hitter became the first player from Curaçao -- located in the southern Caribbean Sea about 40 miles north of Venezuela -- to break into the Majors in 1989, baseball was barely being played on the island of about 150,000 people.

Nicknamed “Bam-Bam,” Meulens played for the Yankees during parts of five seasons before taking the field with several other professional teams in the Majors and in different spots around the globe. During his 159 games in pinstripes, Meulens batted .221 with 12 home runs and 46 RBI.

Beyond the statistics, Meulens changed the way people in his homeland viewed baseball. Since his debut, 16 other players from Curaçao have reached the Majors, with many others achieving success in the Minors and in collegiate baseball. And in addition to cultivating the sport in Curaçao, Meulens has had a successful coaching career in the Majors, winning three championships with the San Francisco Giants.

Meulens, who turns 55 on June 23, recently returned to his original team, signing on as a Yankees assistant hitting coach in February. He sat down with

Yankees Magazine editor-in-chief Alfred Santasiere III to discuss his first stint with the team, his current role in pinstripes and so much of what has happened in between.

Yankees Magazine: Before this year, it had been almost three decades since you last suited up in a Yankees uniform. When you put on the pinstripes for the first time during spring training, what were the memories that came back to you?

Hensley Meulens: There were a lot of memories that came back pretty quickly. The first eight years of my career were spent in a Yankees uniform, traveling up and down the Minor Leagues and finding my way to the big leagues. It all came back to me a few weeks before spring training. I was at a funeral, unfortunately, for Gerald Williams, and I saw Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Tino Martinez, and that kind of brought the feeling back a little bit. Ironically, I got hired for my current position not long after that. Once I wore the uniform again, I felt like it was meant to be for me to be back here.

YM: How much does it mean for you to have that full-circle type of experience with the Yankees organization?

HM: Well, it absolutely means something to me. When you get signed by a team at 18 years old and you leave your family and the place that you’re from to go into a must-win environment, it’s a lot to handle. But coming back some 30 years later, it gave me the chance to think about all that I learned in this organization. The things I learned in those first few years is the foundation of what I became in the game. Also, people respect me for the work that I’ve done on and off of the field, and that all started with the Yankees. Regardless of where else I played, people always remembered me as a Yankee. I played for so many different teams after I left the Yankees, and I coached for 10 years in San Francisco, winning three championships there, but people still associate me with the Yankees. Just about all of the fan mail I get with requests for autographs consists of photos or baseball cards from when I was playing for the Yankees. That’s pretty special after all of the years that have gone by.

YM: Thinking back on your time in the Minors, what stands out from an organizational perspective?

HM: There’s something to be said about how the Yankees take care of business once you are in the system. Besides helping you to improve on the field, they really make sure that you have that foundation, that you know how to carry yourself as a professional. That stays with you long after you are done playing the game.

YM: How would you describe the experience of climbing the Minor League ladder from Rookie ball to Triple-A back then?

HM: It was rough. Traveling on buses and staying in hotels that weren’t that great made it a bit of a challenge. During my first year, I had two roommates in Sarasota, Florida, and we slept in three beds next to each other all summer because that was all that we could afford. The room was $150 a night, so we each chipped in what we could. Those times were hard, but almost immediately, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I was an All-Star my first year, in the Gulf Coast League. Then I went to Prince William, and I broke the team record with 28 home runs. I was promoted to Fort Lauderdale in August of that year, and we won the 1987 Florida State League championship. That team was really good; Buck Showalter was the manager, and we had Kevin Maas, Jason Maas and Jim Leyritz. A bunch of us started moving up really fast. We were all in Double-A the next year, and halfway through that 1988 season, I was in Triple-A. I didn’t experience the full-blown struggles that most guys go through because I was moving up so fast and breaking records.

YM: Looking back on your debut with the Yankees in 1989, when you became the first player from Curaçao to play in a big-league game, what was that day like?

HM: It started very early in the morning with a call from Rick Down, who was our manager in Triple-A (Columbus). We were playing in Pawtucket against the Red Sox’ affiliate, and Rick got on the phone with me at 8 a.m. and told me that I had been called up and that I had an 11 a.m. flight, which I better not miss. Of course, back then, none of us had cell phones, so I couldn’t call anyone as easily as you could today. The Pawtucket stadium was locked, so I couldn’t just walk in and grab my equipment. I had to wake up our trainer, so that he could call the Pawtucket trainer on his home phone. Someone had to then go to the stadium to let me into the clubhouse. In the meantime, I went to the front desk at the old Days Inn hotel in Pawtucket, and I asked the woman there if she could place a call to my parents in Curaçao. She was nice enough to call my parents without charging me, and I got to talk to them for a few minutes. Everyone was going crazy on the island, but I was just worried about getting to New York. I got to the airport in Providence, Rhode Island, and there was a long line. I explained that I had just been called up to the Yankees, and they let me cut to the front of the line. I made the flight, barely, but my bags didn’t make it. When I got to Newark Airport, the Yankees had a limo waiting for me, which was pretty cool.

YM: Did your equipment arrive later that day?

HM: No. I went to my hotel in Manhattan, and then to the Stadium, but they couldn’t get my stuff to New York that day. I was in the starting lineup that night, and I borrowed (shortstop) Rafael Santana’s glove to play in my first game. The Yankees gave me everything else that I needed, and luckily, everything was new except for the glove.

YM: What was the reaction that night in Curaçao, from what you heard?

HM: The island was going nuts. It seemed like everyone there knew that I was the first player to make it, and I’m very proud of that to this day. We’ve had 16 other guys who have made it since then. It’s a great accomplishment; a very proud moment for me and my family, for the community, for the entire Dutch Commonwealth.

YM: Your playing career with the Yankees was something of a roller-coaster ride. How would you describe the journey that began in 1989 and concluded in 1993?

HM: Being that I was the first guy from Curaçao to make it to the Majors, it was a big hoopla. Everyone was waiting for Bam-Bam, and when I finally got there, I didn’t make a great first impression. I went back down to the Minors the next year, won the MVP Award in the International League in 1990 and got called back up to the Majors that September. I made the big club out of spring training in 1991 and played the full season in the Bronx. That was a fun season, but then the ups and downs began again. When I think about playing for the Yankees, my memories are all good. The sour ones are few and far between. I think that everyone has had struggles. I had times when I didn’t hit or didn’t field and basically wasn’t contributing, but the foundation for the rest of my life was being put into place. I was taught to be a quality person off the field.

YM: Without your on-field success and contributions to the growth of baseball in Curaçao following your playing days, the landscape would be far different today. What have been the most important actions that have elevated the sport on the island?

HM: Soccer was the sport in Curaçao. My dad was the captain of the national team, and I played soccer up until I was 16. I was playing three sports, but I felt like I had to focus on one at that point because there was attention coming in from different angles to play professionally. So, I signed with the Yankees, became a big leaguer for a few years, and then I began to do a lot of community work in Curaçao. I was doing clinics where I brought a lot of other Major Leaguers down there. More recently, with a bunch of other big-league coaches, we organized the Curaçao Baseball Week, which fully focuses on giving kids free baseball clinics for a whole week. We get all of our Major League players and former professional players to participate. We have a close relationship with MLB, and we help with the registrations for guys who sign with teams at 16 years old. Right now, we are meeting with MLB about the International Draft. Everything goes through us as we continue to develop the game on our beautiful island.

YM: As you said, soccer was the main sport in Curaçao when you were a teenager. How would you describe the level of interest people had in baseball?

HM: It was small, especially in comparison to soccer. But awareness was created when I made it to the big leagues. People thought it was impossible before that. They thought it was like touching the moon. But after I made it, Major League scouts started coming to Curaçao and finding guys. We’ve had some really great players emerge from Curaçao, and there are a lot of eyes on us. The world knows that baseball exists in Curaçao now. [Team Netherlands] also made it to the World Baseball Classic semifinals in 2013 and 2017, showing that we can compete with anyone at any level. That has encouraged young people in Curaçao to want to play baseball. I’m proud to be from that small island and to be a trailblazer.

YM: You shared the field with Don Mattingly when you played for the Yankees. From your perspective, what characteristics did he have that people outside of the team wouldn’t have seen?

HM: The thing that people don’t realize about Donnie is how good he was to his teammates. Not only was he great on the field -- he was the best player in the game -- but he helped out other players, including me. If you were a young player coming up, struggling at times to try to stay in the big leagues and to continue to be productive, he took a lot of time to talk to you. I remember when me, Bernie Williams, Gerald Williams and Kevin Maas were all young and coming up at the same time. Donnie took all of us under his wing, and that is pretty unique. I’m very grateful for his friendship, and we have spent time together over the last few years. He came to Curaçao on a vacation, and we coached together for a few weeks in Japan. To this day, if I’m faced with something that I’m not sure about, I will call him. But thinking back on playing alongside him, he was a great teammate and helper to me, as a star and the captain of the team.

YM: When you first got to the big leagues, the Yankees were not in contention for a championship, but by the end of your tenure, the culture had begun to change and the team was much more competitive. What were your observations about where the team was headed by 1993?

HM: We always had a good lineup, but we couldn’t keep the other teams from scoring. But the organization started to give young pitchers an opportunity to come up through the Minors and pitch in New York. The struggle was there, but that really started the transition to a better tomorrow for the Yankees. That’s really what happened with the next group of guys -- which included Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada. They were given time to develop in the Minors and in the Majors. You could tell when Buck Showalter took over that change was coming. There was the notion that the Yankees always bought the best players and only had veteran players, but that started to change with Buck. Then they started winning with the young guys. I saw that with my very own eyes, and although I wasn’t there for the championships, I can proudly say that I was part of the transition.

YM: When you look at the San Francisco Giants championship teams you were part of as a coach, what were the most important qualities that all three of those clubs shared?

HM: We were the Yankees of the West! We had great leadership at the top. That was the foundation for the championship environment. From (general manager) Brian Sabean to (manager) Bruce Bochy, we had quality people in the most important positions. Bruce set the tone in the dugout, and we had a great staff with Dave Righetti and Roberto Kelly, both fellow ex-Yankees. Those guys, and the rest of our coaches, conveyed anything that Bruce or the front office wanted to do into the clubhouse really well. We also had a great core of players who performed under pressure. Our pitching staff was amazing, and you need that more than anything. We also had a bunch of “misfits,” as we called them, guys who had all played more than 10 years but who were all hungry to win a championship. When we brought up Buster Posey, he took things to the next level.

YM: How would you compare the thrill of working with an unheralded player who finds his swing at the big-league level to watching an MVP-caliber guy put together a monster season under your tutelage?

HM: Star players make you a better coach! Buster Posey was one of the best hitters I ever saw, but in the first few months of 2012, the season after he broke his leg, he was struggling. I put together an analytic study on him and took some time to go over it with him that June. I told him that he was a great first-pitch hitter, but he hardly ever swung at the first pitch. He had something like a .488 average when he swung at the first pitch, but that sample size was only about 75 at-bats. Most of the time, he was in an 0-2 or a 1-2 count. He was always struggling just to stay alive. His swing was great, but his approach needed to be more aggressive early in the count. So, from that point on, he started smoking the first pitch, and pitchers had no idea how to deal with that. Buster went on to win the NL Comeback Player of the Year, the National League MVP and the batting title that season, and he drove in [103] runs. That was a great change for someone who was already great.

I have had other players who didn’t make the adjustments I suggested at first, then lost playing time and came back to me for advice. I think about working with Brandon Belt, and he basically lived that entire scenario, finally changing his approach and becoming a consistent hitter. Sometimes players come up from the Minors and don’t think they have to make any adjustments, but that’s not usually how it goes. I wish I had made more adjustments; I probably would have had a longer career. In either case, it’s nice to see guys make adjustments and get results.

YM: How productive do you feel the group of hitters on this Yankees team can be in 2022?

HM: I think they can accomplish great things. I think this group can hit more than 200 home runs, and I can see five or six of them driving in 100 runs each. I look at DJ, Judgie, Rizzo, Big G and Donaldson; if those guys can stay healthy, you will see big-time production at the end of the year. I’m not afraid to say that this is probably the most impressive group that I have had the chance to work with. This is a great team; we’ve got so many guys who have already accomplished a lot. I can’t speak to what happened in previous years, but this year, these guys really want to win together. There’s great camaraderie here, guys are helping each other out when they’re struggling. Rizzo is the main guy when it comes to leadership and professionalism and knowing what it takes to win, but the entire mix of guys here is great.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.