New duties in spring training
Manager Aaron Boone set to lead Yankees
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Aaron Boone packed his suitcases, kissed his wife and four kids goodbye and walked out of the door Thursday, having no idea whether he’ll ever be coming back.
Boone and his wife, Laura, placed their Scottsdale home on the market Tuesday, preparing for a new life.
Life as the manager of the New York Yankees.
He’s scheduled to fly to New York on Thursday, and then to Tampa on Friday, for his first spring training as manager.
Boone confided this week to USA TODAY that he planned to switch jobs, anyway, leaving his ESPN Sunday Night
Baseball gig. He was all set to join the front office of another club, spending an entire day interviewing between Games 5 and 6 of the World Series.
The job was his, and he was even thinking about uprooting his family, just as he plans now. Those plans abruptly changed when the Yankees called, offering one of the plum jobs in all of sports.
“I was really planning to make the transition into the game,” says Boone, washing down his panini with a glass of ice tea this week, “whether that role led to coaching, managing or a significant front office role. I was just kind of letting it play out.”
Now, here he is, traveling one day to Los Angeles to have dinner with new Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, chatting in New York with rookie sensation Aaron Judge and pitchers CC Sabathia and Dellin Betances the next, flying to Florida for staff meetings, and checking in with infielders Gleyber Torres and Ronald Torreyes while in town.
In his spare time, he’s talking frequently with his coaches, jotting down potential lineups, mapping out various spring training assignments, and, yes, trying to determine whether the Yankees will be better with Stanton or Judge in right field, who plays left field and who will be the primary DH.
Boone, who had dinner two weeks ago with Stanton, the National League MVP, at Catch in West Hollywood, listened to Stanton tell him that he simply wants to win, no matter what position he plays. Right field. Left field. DH. Makes no difference. Stanton never won with the Miami Marlins, and he can’t wait to start now.
Judge, who also is open to a position switch, has had much more experience than Stanton playing left field. Yet Boone also realizes that he earned that starting right-field job last year, wining the AL Rookie of the Year.
He was beloved by the Yankees fan base who created the Judge’s Chambers in those right-field bleachers. Is it really fair to move him?
“I’m sensitive to all of that,” Boone tells USA TODAY. “They both are aboveaverage right fielders. I don’t want to keep moving them around. We’ll see. There’s a lot of baseball to be played between now and the end of March, so to drill down somebody’s role is a little early.”
The gut feeling is that Judge will stay in right field and Stanton will be used more as a DH than an outfielder, but Boone and his staff will know a lot more by the end of camp, when they will break as favorites to win the AL East.
Boone, 44, realizes there will be plenty of aches and pains in his seat, too. He has never done this before. He is the third generation of the Boone family to play in the major leagues, the son of former manager Bob Boone, but he has never managed. Never coached. He hasn’t even put on a uniform since 2009, when he stopped playing.
Yet he says there are no nerves. He doesn’t feel overwhelmed. He exudes that calm, quiet confidence just as he did when he played.
He inherits a burgeoning love affair between the franchise and a fan base, reflected at the ticket window. The Yankees have already sold 550,000 more tickets than a year ago and are projected to draw more than 3.5 million fans for the first time since 2012.
“Yep,” Boone says, laughing, “I put fannies in the seats.”
Then again, Boone says, maybe he’s just keeping his own seat warm for Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod replaced him in New York in 2004 when Boone blew out his knee playing basketball. And now ARod is replacing him on the Sunday night ESPN telecasts.
“So he’ll be taking my job next, right?” Boone says.
That’s Boone. The dude is intelligent, charming and always with a dry sense of humor. He was popular as a player, wellreceived as a broadcaster and has the personality that should endear him to the New York media.
He realizes his hiring was unorthodox. He knows there will be veteran managers and coaches privately seething that he has this job without paying his dues. He understands but refuses to be fazed, supported by his peers who made similar transitions.
Boone talked extensively with Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who also never coached or managed in the minors, before getting his job. Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch went straight from the front office to his first managerial job. Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers never managed in the minors. Neither did new Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora.
“That’s what probably what pushed me into wanting to do this,” Boone says, “is seeing what A.J. and those guys have been able to do. Those are guys I consider friends and very much so peers. And their success helped fuel that a little bit.
“In a way, when I see those guys, I feel like I’m looking in a mirror.”
Boone, whose half-season in the Bronx included hitting the pennantclinching homer in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series against the Red Sox, knows what’s expected.
Joe Girardi won a World Series, 56% of his games in 10 seasons and guided a young and surprising Yankee squad to within a game of the 2017 World Series. For that, he was given a pink slip and an enhanced résumé for his new gig in the MLB Network studio.
Boone will start with a three-year contract and a presumably long leash, with marching orders to connect with that young core.
To Boone, that also means putting the bull’s-eye on his own back.
“Playing for Joe Torre, there were so many things he did so well,” Boone says, “and a few of those things I want to replicate. The way he handles New York and took the pressure off the players. I want to be that guy, too.
“I’m excited, I really am.” Boone will have his inaugural spring training news conference Tuesday and six days later will address his own team, hoping to be accepted and eventually respected.
“I’ve been giving some thought as far as what I want to say,” Boone says, “but the one thing I learned with ESPN, when you try to script yourself, you get off track and it throws you off. I don’t like to be overly prepared for it. I know what I’m going to talk about, so I’m just going to talk. I want it to be real and authentic, how I’m feeling up there.
“I’m just going to be myself.”